*~ ~'W:fc,.»« t^zytip 

UCICCM  LIBK 

CALIFORNIA  COLLEGE  OF  MEDICINE 


- to- 


SPARE   HOURS"1 


JOHN   BROWN,  M.D. 

LL.  D.,  ETC. 


' '  Cefagotage  de  tant  si  diver ses  pieces,  sefaict  en  cette  condition :  qve  je  tfy 

mets  la  main,  q-ue  lors  qu'une  trap  lascJte  oysifvett  me 

presses'  —  MICHEL  DK  MONTAIGNB 


THIRD   SERIES 

LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM 
AND    OTHER   PAPERS 

Fourth  Edition. 


BOSTON 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 
New  York:    11    East  Seventeenth  Street 

(Cfce  fiiters'iDe  Press, 
1884 


I  IZ 


* 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge  : 
Stereotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


"  Knowledge  and  Wisdom,  far  from  being  one, 
Have  ofttimes  no  connection.     Knowledge  dwells 
In  heads  replete  with  thoughts  of  other  men  ; 
Wisdom  in  minds  attentive  to  their  own. 
Knowledge  is  proud,  that  he  has  learnt  so  much  ; 
Wisdom  is  humble,  that  he  knows  no  more" 

COWPBR. 


VERAX, 

CAP  AX  SAG  AX. 

PERSPICAX  EFFICAX. 

TENAX. 


NOTE. 

THE  present  volume  consists  of  a  re-issue  of  the  more 
purely  professional  papers  published  in  1866,  to 
which  I  have  added  a  few  words  on  Dr.  John  Scott,  Mr. 
Syme,  and  Sir  Robert  Christison.  They  are  addressed  more 
to  myself  than  to  anyone  else. 

With  some  true  things,  and  not  unimportant,  there  are 
some  rash  and  jejune  ones ;  but  though  recognizing  fully 
the  immense  enlargement  of  our  means  of  knowledge  in 
these  latter  years,  I  would  put  in  as  strong  a  word  as  ever 
for  the  cultivation  and  concentration  of  the  unassisted 
senses.  Microscopes,  sphygmographs,  etc.,  are  good,  but 
don't  let  us  neglect  the  drawing  out  into  full  power,  by  the 
keen  and  intelligent  use  of  them,  those  eyes  which  we  can 
always  carry  with  us. 

It  is  this  aKpt&eia,  of  the  wise  and  subtle  Greek,  this  ac- 
curacy (ad  and  euro)  of  the  stout  Roman,  that  is  the  eye 
of  the  physician  and  its  memory,  and  it  depends  greatly 
on  vivid  attention  in  the  act  of  seeing  ;  -as  Dr.  Chalmers 
said,  there  is  a  looking  as  well  as  a  seeing.  "  I  've  lost  my 
spectacles,"  said  good,  easy  Lord  Cuninghame,  as  he  was 
mooning  about  Brougham  Hall  in  search  of  them,  when  on 
a  visit  to  his  vehement  old  friend,  its  Lord,  whose  mind 
was  always  in  full  spate.  "Where  did  you  lay  them?" 
said  Brougham.  "  I  forget."  "Forget!  you  should  never 
forget  ;  nobody  should  forget.  I  never  forget.  You  should 
attend  ;  I  always  do.  7  observed  where  you  laid  your  spec- 
tacles ;  there  they  are ! ' ' 

The  onlv  other  thino-s  I  would  now  mention  are,  1st,  The 


0  NOTE. 

cramming  system  of  Examinations  Surely  this  mattcr: 
which  is  becoming  an  enormous  nuisance  and  mischief  and 
oppression  to  examiners  as  well  as  examinees,  has  reached 
that  proverbial  point  when  things  begin  to  mend.  Let  some 
strong-brained,  wide-knowledged,  and  merciful  man  find  out 
the  how  to  mend. 

2d,  I  am  more  convinced  than  ever  of  the  futility,  and 
worse  of  the  Licensing  system,  and  think,  with  Adam  Smith, 
that  a  niediciner  should  be  as  free  to  exercise  his  gifts  as  an 
architect  or  a  mole-catcher.  The  Public  has  its  own  shrewd 
way  of  knowing  who  should  build  its  house  or  catch  its 
moles,  and  it  may  quite  safely  be  left  to  take  the  same  line 
in  choosing  its  doctor. 

Lawyers,  of  course,  are  different,  as  they  have  to  do  with 
the  State  —  with  the  law  of  the  land.  J.  B. 

23  RUTLAND  STREET,  April  12,  1882. 


In  order  to  render  this  collection  of  Dr.  Brown's  papers 
complete,  the  American  publishers  have  added  to  this  vol- 
ume the  contents  beginning  with  Miss  Stirling  Graham,  of 
Duntrune. 


CONTENTS. 


PAOH 

INTRODUCTION ..19 

LOCKE  AND  STDENHAM ,  39 

DR.  ANDREW  COMBE    ........  119 

PH.  HENRY  MARSHALL  AND  MILITARY  HYGIENE        .  145 

ART  AND  SCIENCE 193 

OUR  GIDEON  GRAYS 207 

DR.  ANDREW  BROWN  AND  SYDENHAM      .      f»       •  221 

FREE  COMPETITION  IN  MEDICINE 235 

EDWARD  FORBES 241 

DR.  ADAMS  OF  BANCHORY 251 

EXCURSUS  ETHICUS 261 

DR.  JOHN  SCOTT  AND  HIS  SON.    MR.  SYME.    SIR  ROB- 
ERT CHRISTISON,  BART 283 

Dr.  John  Scott 285 

Mr.  Syme 289 

Sir  Robert  Christison 300 

Miss  STIRLING  GRAHAM  OF  DUNTRUNE  ....  305 
Sm  E.  LANDSEER'S  PICTURE  "  THERE  'a  LIFE  IN  THE 

OLD  DOG  YET,"  ETC.,  ETC.   .        .        .        .        .  313 

Halle's  Recital 319 

Biggar  and  the  House  of  Fleming      ....  328 

"Giein'  himseP  a  fleg" 329 

Biggar  as  a  Medical  School       ....  330 

Robert  Forsyth,  Advocate 332 

Mary  Youston  and  Professional  Ethics      .        .  334 

"  Langleathers " 335 

Sin  HENRY  RAEBURN .  345 

SOMETHING  ABOUT  A  WELL                   .  369 


PREFACE   TO  EDITION   OF  1866. 

HESE  occasional  Papers  appeared,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  in  the  early  editions  of  HOR^E 
STJBSECIV-E,  and  were  afterwards  excluded  as 
being  too  professional  for  the  general  reader.  They 
have  been  often  inquired  for  since,  and  are  now  re- 
printed with  some  fear  that  they  may  be  found  a  sort 
of  compromise  of  flesh  and  fowl,  like  the  duck-billed 
Platypus  —  neither  one  thing  nor  the  other  —  not  med- 
ical enough  for  the  doctors,  and  too  medical  for  their 
patients. 

If  they  are  of  any  use,  it  will  be  in  confirming  in  the 
old  and  impressing  on  the  young  practitioners  of  the  art 
of  healing,  the  importance  of  knowledge  at  first  hand ; 
of  proving  all  things,  and  holding  fast  only  that  which  is 
good  :  of  travelling  through  life  and  through  its  cam- 
paigns, as  far  as  can  be,  like  Caesar  —  relictis  impedi- 
mentis  —  neither  burdened  overmuch  with  mere  word- 
knowledge,  nor  led  captive  by  tradition  and  routine,  nor 
demoralized  by  the  pestilent  lusts  of  novelty,  notoriety, 
or  lucre. 

This  is  one  great  difficulty  of  modern  times ;  the 
choosing  not  only  what  to  know,  but  what  to  trust ; 
what  not  to  know,  and  what  to  forget.  Often  when  I 
see  some  of  our  modern  Admirable  Crichtons  leaving 
their  university,  armed  cap-a-pie,  and  taking  the  road, 


10  PREFACE. 

where  they  are  sure  to  meet  with  lions  of  all  sorts,  I 
think  of  King  Jamie  in  his  full  armor  —  "  Naebody 
claur  meddle  wi'  me,  and,"  with  a  helpless  grin,  "  I  daur 
meddle  wi'  naebody."  Much  of  this  excess  of  the  ma- 
terial of  knowledge  is  the  glory  of  our  age,  but  much  of 
it  likewise  goes  to  its  hindrance  and  its  shame,  and  forms 
the  great  difficulty  with  medical  education.  Every  man 
ought  to  consider  all  his  lecture-room  knowledge  as  only 
so  much  outside  of  himself,  which  he  must,  if  it  is  to  do 
him  any  good,  take  in  moderately,  silently,  selectly  ;  and 
by  his  own  gastric  juice  and  chylopoietics,  turn,  as  he  best 
can,  in  succum  et  sanguinem.  The  muscle  and  the  cin- 
eritious  matter,  the  sense  and  the  power,  will  follow  as 
matters  of  course. 

And  every  man.  who  is  in  earnest,  who  looks  at  nat- 
ure and  his  own  proper  work  with  his  own  eyes,  goes 
on  through  life  demolishing  as  well  as  building  up  what 
he  has  been  taught,  and  what  he  teaches  himself.  He 
must  make  a  body  of  medicine  for  himself,  slowly,  stead- 
ily, and  with  a  single  eye  to  the  truth.  He  must  not  on 
every  emergency  run  off  to  his  Cyclopaedias,  or,  still 
worse,  to  his  Manuals. 

For  in  physic,  as  in  other  things,  men  are  apt  to  like 
ready-made  knowledge ;  which  is  generally  as  bad  as 
ready-made  shoes,  or  a  second-hand  coat. 

Our  ordinary  senses,  our  judgment  and  our  law  of 
duty,  must  make  up  the  prime  means  of  mastering  and 
prosecuting  with  honor  and  success  the  medical,  or  in- 
deed any  other  profession  founded  upon  the  common 
wants  of  mankind.  Microscopes,  pleximeters,  the  nice 
tests  of  a  delicate  chemistry,  and  all  the  transcendental 
apparatus  of  modern  refinement,  must  always  be  more  for 
the  few  than  for  the  many.  Therefore  it  is  that  I  would 


PREFACE.  11 

insist  more  and  more  on  immediate,  exact,  intense  ob- 
servation and  individual  judgment,  as  the  mainstays  of 
practical  medicine.  From  the  strenuous,  life-long,  truth- 
loving  exercise  of  these,  let  no  amount  of  science,  how- 
ever exquisite,  decoy  the  student ;  and  let  him  who  has 
them  not  greatly  long  after,  as  he  will  not  greatly  miss, 
these  higher  graces  of  the  profession.  What  will  make 
a  valuable  physician  or  surgeon  now,  and  enable  him 
when  he  dies  to  bequeath  some  good  thing  to  his  fellow- 
men,  must  in  the  main  be  the  same  as  that  which  made 
Hippocrates  and  Sydenham,  Baillie  and  Gregory,  what 
we  glory  and  rejoice  to  think  they  were. 

Therefore,  my  young  friend,  trust  neither  too  much 
to  others,  nor  too  much  to  yourself ;  but  trust  every- 
thing to  ascertained  truth  to  principles  ;  and  as  chemists 
can  do  nothing  without  a  perfect  balance,  so  see  to  it 
that  your  balance,  that  weighing  faculty  which  God  has 
given  you,  is  kept  true  —  in  a  state,  as  Locke  would 
say,  of  "  absolute  indifferency,"  turning  only  to  the  touch 
of  honest  weight.  See  that  dust  does  not  gather  on  its 
agate  plate  and  studs,  clogging  its  free  edge.  See  that 
no  one  loads  it,  that  you  don't  load  it  yourself,  —  for  we 
are  all  apt  to  believe  that  which  we  desire,  —  and  put 
down  its  results,  as  on  soul  and  conscience,  at  all  hazards 
letting  it  tell  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but 
the  truth. 

One  can  fancy  the  care  with  which  such  men  as  New- 
ton, Bishop  Butler,  Dr.  "Wollaston,  or  our  own  Faraday, 
would  keep  their  mental  balance  in  trim,  —  in  what  a 
sacred  and  inmost  place,  —  away  from  all  "  winds  of 
doctrine,"  all  self-deceit  and  "  cunning  craftiness,"  all 
rust,  all  damp,  all  soiling  touch,  all  disturbing  influences, 
acting  as  truly  as  anything  either  of  the  Oertlings,  or 


12  PREFACE. 

Staudinger,  or  the  exquisite  Bianchi  could  turn  out,1 
—  turning  sweetly  and  at  once,  as  theirs  do,  for  big 
weights  with  the  yj^th,  and  with  small  with  the  s-^jjth 
of  a  grain.  And  to  keep  up  our  joke,  we  need  not  be 
always  pondering ;  we  should  use  what  the  chemists  call 
the  arrestment,  by  which  the  balance  is  relieved  and 
rests.  We  will  weigh  and  judge  all  the  better  that  we 
are  not  always  at  it ;  we  may  with  advantage  take  a  turn 
at  rumination,  contemplation,  and  meditation,  all  differ- 
ent and  all  restful,  as  well  as  useful ;  and  don't  let  us 
out  of  idleness  or  super-consciousness  take  to  everlasting 
weighing  of  ourselves. 

As  far  as  you  can,  trust  no  other  man's  scales,  or 
weights,  or  eyes,  when  you  can  use  your  own,  and  let  us 
in  a  general  way  look  with  both  our  eyes. 

It  was  a  great  relief  to  reflecting  mankind,  when  the 
stereoscope  showed  us  the  use  of  having  two  eyes,  and 
that  human  nature  had  not  been  all  its  days  carrying 
number  two  as  a  fox-hunter  does  his  extra  horse-shoe, 
in  case  of  losing  number  one. 

"We  see  solidity  by  means  of  our  two  eyes ;  we  see,  so 
to  speak,  on  both  sides  of  a  body  ;  and  we  find,  what 
indeed  was  known  before,  that  the  ultimate  image,  or 
rather  the  idea  of  external  objects,  is  a  compromise  of 
two  images,  a  tertium  quid,  which  has  no  existence  but  in 
the  brain,  somewhere,  I  suppose,  in  the  optic  Chiasma. 

Now  there  is  such  a  thing  as  stereoscopic  thinking,  — 
the  viewing  subjects  as  well  as  objects  with  our  two 
eyes.  Some  men  of  intense  nature  shut  one  of  the  eyes 
of  the  mind,  as  a  sportsman  does  his  actual  eye  when 
he  aims  at  his  game,  because  then  there  is  a  straight  line 

1  A  friend  says,  "put  in  Liebrich  and  Jung,  and  thai  a  good  bal- 
ance should  turn  with  _i 5  th  Of  a  Troy  grain  "  ! 


PREFACE.  13 

between  Ais  eye  and  Ais  object;  but  for  the  general  pur- 
pose of  understanding  and  mastering  the  true  bulk  and 
projection,  the  whereat/outs  and  relations  of  a  subject,  it 
is  well  to  look  with  both  eyes ;  and  so  it  comes  to  pass 
that  the  focus  of  one  man's  mental  vision  differs  from 
that  of  another,  probably  in  some  respects  from  that  of 
all  others,  and  hence  the  allowance  which  we  should 
make  for  other  men  when  they  fail  to  see  not  only 
things,  but  thoughts,  exactly  as  we  do.  We  will  find, 
when  we  look  through  their  stereoscope,  we  don't  see 
their  image  as  they  do,  — it  may  be  double,  it  may  be 
distorted  and  blurred.  I  have  long  thought  that  upon 
the  deepest  things  in  man's  nature — those  that  bind 
him  to  duty,  to  God,  and  to  eternity  —  no  man  receives 
the  light,  no  man  sees  "  into  the  life  of  things,"  exactly 
as  any  other  does,  and  that  as  each  man  of  the  millions 
of  the  race  since  time  began  has  his  own  essence,  that 
which  makes  him  himself,  and  qua,  that,  distinct  from 
all  else,  so  ultimate  truth,  when  it  lies  down  to  rest  and 
be  thankful  on  the  optic  Thalami  of  the  soul,  has  in  it  a 
something  incommunicable,  unintelligible  to  all  others. 
No  two  men  out  of  ten  thousand,  gazing  at  a  rainbow, 
see  the  same  bow.  They  have  each  a  glorious  arch  of 
their  own,  and  while  they  agree  as  to  what  each  says  of 
it,  still  doubtless  there  is  in  each  of  those  ten  thousand 
internal  glories  within  the  veil,  in  the  chamber  of  im- 
agery, —  some  touch,  some  tint,  which  differentiates  it 
from  all  the  rest.  But  to  return :  look  with  both  eyes, 
and  think  the  truth  as  you  would  speak  and  act  it.  It  is 
the  rarer  virtue,  I  suspect. 

When  the  English  nobility  were  overwhelming  Ca- 
nova  with  commissions,  and  were  ignorant  of  the  exist- 
ence of  their  own  Flaxman,  the  generous  Italian  rebuked 


14  PREFACE. 

them  by  saying,  "  You  English  see  with  »our 

and  there  is  much  of  this  sort  of  seeing  in  medicine  jn 

well  as  in  art  and  fashion. 

I  end  with  the  weighty  words  of  one  who  I  rejoice  *« 
still  a  living  honor  to  our  art ;  a  man  uniting  much  ol 
the  best  of  Locke  and  Sydenham  with  more  of  himselt 
and  whose  small  volumes  contain  the  very  medulla  m* 
dicince ;  a  man  who  has  the  courage  to  say,  "  I  wa« 
wrong ; "  "I  do  not  know ; "  and  " I  shall  wait  and 
watch." 

"  I  make  bold  to  tell  you  my  conviction,  that  during 
the  last  thirty-six  years  the  practice  of  medicine  has 
upon  the  whole  "  (taking  in  the  entire  profession)  "  gone 
backwards,  and  that  year  after  year  it  is  still  going  back- 
wards. Doubtless  in  the  mean  time  there  has  been  9 
vast  increase  of  physiological  and  pathological  knowl- 
edge ;  but  that  knowledge  has  not  been  brought  to  bea", 
in  anything  like  the  degree  it  might  and  ought  to  have 
been,  upon  the  practice  of  medicine ;  and  simply  for  this 
reason,  that  the  mass  of  the  profession  has  never  been 
taught  what  the  practice  of  medicine  means. 

"  Had  the  same  office  (the  settling  the  kind  and 
amount  of  professional  education)  been  committed  to 
Gregory,  and  Heberden,  and  Baillie,  they  would,  I  am 
persuaded,  have  made  the  indispensable  subjects  of  educa- 
tion very  few,  and  the  lectures  very  few  too. 

"  They  would  have  made  the  attendance  upon  the  sick 
in  hospitals  a  constant,  systematic,  serious  affair.1  As 

l  We  wish  we  saw  more  time,  and  more  handiwork,  more  mind  spent 
upon  anatomy  and  surgery,  especially  clinical  surgery.  There  is  a 
great  charm  for  the  young  in  the  visibility  of  surgical  disease  and 
practice,  in  knowledge  at  the  finger-ends,  and  the  principles  and  per- 
formance of  a  true  surgery  constitute  one  of  the  best  disciplines  for  the 
office  of  the  physician  proper. 


PREFACE.  15 

for  the  "ologies,"  they  would  have  thrown  them  all 
overboard,  or  recommended  them  only  to  the  study  of 
those  who  had  time  enough,  or  capacity  enough,  to  pur- 
sue them  profitably."  These  are  golden  words  ;  put  them 
in  your  scales,  and  read  off  and  register  their  worth. 
You  will  observe  that  it  is  the  practice,  not  the  study  — 
it  is  the  inner  art,  not  the  outer  science  —  of  medicine 
which  is  here  referred  to  as  being  retrograde.  We  ques- 
tion very  much  if  there  is  as  much  skill,  in  its  proper 
sense,  now  as  then.  There  is  to  be  sure  the  immense 
negative  blessing  of  our  deliverance  from  the  polyphar- 
macy  aud  nimia  diligenlia  of  our  forefathers,  and  there- 
fore very  likely  more  of  the  sick  get  well  now  than  then. 
But  this  is  not  the  point  in  question  ;  that  is  whether 
the  men  who  practise  medicine,  taken  in  the  slump, 
have  the  ability  and  practical  nous  that  they  had  five- 
and-thirty  years  ago. 

Diagnosis  has  been  greatly  advanced  by  the  external 
methods  of  auscultation,  the  microscope,  chemical  anal- 
ysis, etc.  —  and  there  is  (I  sometimes  begin  to  fear  we 
must  say  was)  a  better  understanding  of  and  trust  in  the 
great  restorative  powers  of  nature.  The  recognition  of 
blood  poisons,  and  of  many  acute  diseases,  being  in  fact 
the  burning  out  of  long-slumbering  mischief,  the  cleans- 
ing away  of  the  perilous  stuff  manufactured  within,  or 
taken  in  from  without,  as  seen  in  a  fit  of  gout ;  in  all 
this  we  have  gained  more  than  we  have  lost  (we  always 
lose  something),  but  is  the  practical  power  over  disease 
commensurate  with  these  enlargements  ?  is  our  sagacity 
up  to  our  science  ? 

The  raw  "  prentice  "  lad  whom  Gideon  Gray  had  sent 
up  from  Middlemas  to  the  head  of  Caddon  Water,  to 
deliver  the  herd's  wife,  and  who,  finding  her  alone,  and 


16  PREFACE. 

sinking  from  uterine  haemorrhage,  and  having  got  the 
huge  flaccid  deadly  bag  to  contract  once  more,  im- 
prisoned it  in  a  wooden  bicker  or  bowl,  with  a  tight 
binder  over  it,  leaving  his  hands  free  for  other  work,  — 
this  rough  and  ready  lad  has  probably  more  of  the  mak- 
ing of  a  village  Abercrombie,  than  the  pallid  and  accom- 
plished youth  who  is  spending  his  holidays  at  the  next 
farm,  and  who  knows  all  for  and  against  Dr.  R.  Lee's 
placental  and  cardiac  claims,  and  is  up  to  the  newest 
freak  of  the  Fallopian  tubes  and  their  jimbrice,  or  the 
very  latest  news  from  the  ovisac  and  the  corpora  lutea. 

To  be  sure,  there  may  be  boys  who  can  both  know 
everything,  and  do  the  one  thing  that  is  needed,  but  the 
mental  faculties,  or  capacities  rather,  that  are  cultivated, 
and  come  out  strong  in  the  cramming  system,  are  not 
those  on  which  we  rely  for  safe,  ready,  and  effectual 
action. 

We  are  now,  in  our  plans  of  medical  education,  aim- 
ing too  much  at  an  impossible  maximum  of  knowledge 
in  all,  meanwhile  missing  greatly  that  essential  mini- 
mum in  any,  which,  after  all,  is  the  one  thing  we  want 
for  making  a  serviceable  staff  of  doctors  for  the  com- 
munity. 

Sagacity,  manual  dexterity,  cultivated  and  intelligent 
presence  of  mind,  the  tactus  eruditus,  a  kind  heart,  and 
a  conscience,  these,  if  there  at  all,  are  always  at  hand, 
always  inestimable ;  and  if  wanting,  "  though  I  speak 
with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels,  I  am  as  sound- 
ing brass,  or  a  tinkling  cymbal ;  and  though  I  under- 
stand all  mysteries,  and  all  knowledge,  I  am  nothing." 
I  can  profit  my  patient  and  myself  nothing. 

In  the  words  of  Dr.  Latham :  *  — 

l  Clinical  Medicine,  Lect.  I. 


PREFACE.  17 

"  In  our  day  there  is  little  fear  that  students  will  be 
spoiled  by  the  recommendation  of  their  instructors  to  be 
content  with  a  scanty  knowledge,  and  trust  to  their  own 
sagacity  for  the  rest.  They  are  not  likely  to  suffer 
harm  by  having  Sydenham  held  up  as  an  example  for 
imitation.  The  fear  is  of  another  kind  (and  it  is  well 
grounded),  namely,  that  many  men  of  the  best  abilities 
and  good  education  will  be  deterred  from  prosecuting 
physic  as  a  profession,  in  consequence  of  the  necessity 
indiscriminately  laid  upon  all  for  impossible  attain- 
ments" 

And  again :  — 

"  Let  us  take  care  then  what  we  are  about,  and  be- 
ware how  we  change  the  character  of  the  English  prac- 
titioner of  physic.  He  is  sound  and  unpretending,  and 
full  of  good  sense.  What  he  wants  is  a  little  more  care- 
ful, and  a  somewhat  larger  instruction  in  what  bears 
directly  upon  the  practical  part  of  his  profession.  Give 
it  him  (indeed  we  are  giving  it  him),  and  he  will  be- 
come more  trustworthy  and  more  respected  every  day. 
But  for  all  that  is  beyond  this,  we  may  recommend  it,  but 
we  must  not  insist  upon  it ;  we  must  leave  it  for  each 
man  to  pursue  according  to  his  leisure,  his  opportuni- 
ties, and  his  capacity,  and  not  exaggerate  it  into  a 
matter  of  necessity  for  all.  When  too  much  is  exacted, 
too  little  will  be  learned ;  excess  on  the  one  hand  nat- 
urally leads  to  defect  on  the  other." 
2 


INTRODUCTION.1 

Y  objects,  in  this  volume  of  odds  and  ends,  are, 
among  others,  — 

I.  To  give  my  vote  for  going  back  to  the 
old  manly  intellectual  and  literary  culture  of  the  days 
of  Sydenham  and  Arbuthnot,  Heberden  and  Gregory ; 
when  a  physician  fed,  enlarged,  and  quickened  his  entire 
nature ;  when  he  lived  in  the  world  of  letters  as  a  free- 
holder, and  reverenced  the  ancients,  while,  at  the  same 
time,  he  pushed  on  among  his  fellows,  and  lived  in  the 
present,  believing  that  his  profession  and  his  patients 
need  not  suffer,  though  his  horce  subsecivtz  were  devoted 
occasionally  to  miscellaneous  thinking  and  reading,  and 
to  a  course  of  what  is  elsewhere  called  "  fine  confused 
feeding,"  or  though,  at  his  by-hours  he  be,  as  his  Gaelic 
historian  says  of  Hob  Roy,  a  man  "  of  incoherent  trans- 
actions —  specially  in  general."  For  system  is  not  al- 
ways method,  much  less  progress. 

II.  That  the  study  in  himself  and  others  of  the  hu- 
man understanding,  its  modes  and  laws  as  objective  real- 
ities, and  his  gaining  that  power  over  mental  action  in 

1  This  Introduction  contains  so  mnch  of  the  Preface  to  the  First 
Edition  as  relates  to  the  contents  of  this  volume.  The. remainder  may 
be  found  in  the  Author's  Preface  prefixed  to  the  first  series  of  Spare 
Hours. 


20  INTRODUCTION. 

himself  and  others,  which  alone  comes  from  knowledge 
at  first-hand,  is  one  which  every  physician  should  not 
only  begin  in  youth,  but  continue  all  his  life  long,  and 
which  hi  fact  all  men  of  sense  and  origiual  thought  do 
make,  though  it  may  lie  in  their  minds,  as  it  were,  un- 
formed and  without  a  tongue. 

III.  That  physiology  and  the  laws  of  health  are  the 
interpreters  of  disease  and  cure,  over  whose  porch  we 
may  best  inscribe  hinc  sanitas.  That  it  is  in  watching 
Nature's  methods  of  cure  l  in  ourselves  and  in  the  lower 
animals,  —  and  in  a  firm  faith  in  the  self-regulative,  re- 
cuperative powers  of  nature,  that  all  our  therapeutic  in- 
tentions and-  means  must  proceed,  and  that  we  should 
watch  and  obey  this  truly  Divine  voice  and  finger,  with 
reverence  and  godly  fear,  as  well  as  with  diligence  and 
worldly  wisdom — humbly  standing  by  while  He  works, 
guiding,  not  stemming  or  withdrawing,  His  current,  and 
acting  as  His  ministers  and  helps.  Not,  however,  that 
we  should  go  about  making  every  man,  aud  above  all, 
every  woman,  his  and  her  own  and  everybody  else's 
doctor,  by  making  them  swallow  a  dose  of  science  and 
physiology,  falsely  so  called.  There  is  much  mischiev- 
ous nonsense  talked  and  acted  on,  in  this  direction.  The 

l  "  '  That  there  is  no  curing  diseases  by  art,  without  first  knowing 
how  they  are  to  be  cured  by  nature,'  was  the  observation  of  an  an- 
cient physician  of  great  eminence,  who  very  early  in  my  life  superin- 
tended niy  medical  education,  and  by  this  axiom  all  my  studies  and 
practice  have  been  regulated." — Grant  on  Fevers,  Loud.  1771.  An 
admirable  book,  and  to  be  read  still,  as  its  worth,  like  that  of  nature, 
never  grows  old,  naturam  non  pati  senium.  We  would  advise  every 
young  physician  who  is  in  practice  to  read  this  unpretending  and  nov 
little-known  book,  especially  the  Introduction.  Any  "ancient  physi 
cian,"  and  the  greater  his  eminence  and  his  age  the  better,  so  that  th^ 
eminence  be  real,  who  takes  it  up,  will  acknowledge  that  the  author  hai  • 
done  what  he  said,  made  "  this  axiom  "  the  rule,  of  his  life  and  doctrine 


INTRODUCTION.  21 

physiology  to  be  taught  in  schools,  and  to  our  clients 
the  public,  should  be  the  physiology  of  common  sense, 
rather  than  that  of  dogmatic  and  minute  science  ;  and 
should  be  of  a  kind,  as  it  easily  may  be,  which  will  de- 
ter from  self-doctoring,  while  it  guides  in  prevention  and 
conduct ;  and  will  make  them  understand  enough  of  the 
fearful  and  wonderful  machinery  of  life,  to  awe  and 
warn,  as  well  as  to  enlighten. 

Much  of  the  strength  and  weakness  of  Homoeopathy 
lies  in  the  paltry  fallacy,  that  every  mother,  and  every 
clergyman,  and  "  loose  woman,"  as  a  wise  friend  calls 
the  restless  public  old  maid,  may  know  when  to  admin- 
ister aconite,  arsenicum.  and  nux,  to  her  child,  his  entire 
parish,  or  her  "  circle."  Indeed  here,  as  elsewhere, 
man's  great  difficulty  is  to  strive  to  walk  through  life, 
and  through  thought  and  practice,  in  a  straight  line  ;  to 
keep  in  medio  —  in  that  golden  mean,  which  is  our  true 
centre  of  gravity,  and  which  we  lost  in  Eden.  "We 
all  tend  like  children,  or  the  blind,  the  old,  or  the  tipsy, 
to  walk  to  one  side,  or  wildly  from  one  side  to  the  other : 
one  extreme  breeds  its  opposite.  Hydropathy  sees  and 
speaks  some  truth,  but  it  is  as  in  its  sleep,  or  with  one 
eye  shut,  and  one  leg  lame  ;  its  practice  does  good,  much 
of  its  theory  is  sheer  nonsense,  and  yet  it  is  the  theory 
that  its  masters  and  their  constituents  doat  on. 

If  all  that  is  good  in  the  Water-Care,  and  in  Rubbing, 
and  in  Homeopathy,  were  winnowed  from  the  false,  the 
useless,  and  the  worse,  what  an  important  and  permanent 
addition  would  be  made  to  our  operative  knowledge !  — 
to  our  powers  as  healers  !  and  here  it  is,  where  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  we  have,  as  a  profession,  gone  astray 
in  our  indiscriminate  abuse  of  all  these  new  practices 
and  nostrums :  they  indicate,  however  coarsely  and 


22  INTRODUCTION. 

stupidly,  some  want  in  us.  There  is  in  them  all  some- 
thing good,  and  if  we  could  draw  to  us,  iustead  of  driv- 
ing away  from  us,  those  men  whom  we  call,  and  in  the 
main  truly  call,  quacks,  —  if  we  could  absorb  them  with 
a  difference,  rejecting  the  ridiculous  and  mischievous 
much,  and  adopting  and  sanctioning  the  valuable  little, 
we  and  the  public  would  be  all  the  better  off.  Why 
should  not  "  the  Faculty  "  have  under  their  control  and 
advice,  and  at  their  command,  rubbers,  and  shampooers, 
and  water  men,  and  milk  men,  and  grape  men,  and 
cudgelling  men,  as  they  have  cuppers,  and  the  like,  in- 
stead of  giving  them  the  advantage  of  crying  out  "  per- 
secution," and  quoting  the  martyrs  of  science  from 
Galileo  downwards. 

IV.  As  my  readers  may  find  to  their  discontent,  the 
natural,  and,  till  we  get  into  "  an  ampler  aether  and 
diviner  air,"  the  necessary  difference  between  specula- 
tive science  and  practical  art  is  iterated  and  reiterated 
with  much  persistency,  and  the  necessity  of  estimating 
medicine  more  as  the  Art  of  healing  than  the  Science  of 
diseased  action  and  appearances,1  and  its  being  more 

l  When  the  modern  scientific  methods  first  burst  on  our  medical 
world,  and  especially,  when  morbid  anatomy  in  connection  with  phys- 
ical signs  (as  distinguished  from  purely  vital  symptoms,  an  incom- 
plete but  convenient  distinction),  the  stethoscope,  microscope,  etc.,  it, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  became  the  rage  to  announce,  with  startling 
minuteness,  what  was  the  organic  condition  of  the  interior  —  as  if  a 
watchmaker  would  spend  most  of  his  own  time  and  his  workmen's  in 
debating  on  the  beautiful  ruins  of  his  wheels,  instead  of  teaching  him- 
self and  them  to  keep  the  totum  quid  clean  and  going,  —  winding  it  up 
before  it  stopped.  Renowned  clinical  professors  would  keep  shiver- 
ing, terrified,  it  might  be  dying,  patients  sitting  up  while  they  ex- 
hibited their  powers  in  auscultation  and  pleximetry,  etc.,  the  poor 
students,  honest  fellows,  standing  by  all  the  while  and  supposing  this 
to  be  their  chief  end ;  and  the  same  eager,  admirable,  and  acute  per« 
former,  after  putting  down  everything  in  a  book,  might  be  seen  mov 


INTRODUCTION.  23 

teachable  and  better  by  example  than  by  precept,  in- 
sisted on  as  one  of  the  most  urgent  wants  of  the  time. 
But  I  must  stick  to  this.  Regard  for,  and  reliance  on 
a  person,  is  not  less  necessary  for  a  young  learner  than 
belief  in  a  principle,  or  an  abstract  body  of  truth ;  and 
here  it  is  that  we  have  given  up  the  good  of  the  old 
apprenticeship  system,  along  with  its  evil.  This  will 
remedy,  and  is  remedying  itself.  The  abuse  of  huge 
classes  of  mere  hearers  of  the  law,  under  the  Professor, 

ing  on  to  the  lecture-room,  where  he  told  the  same  youths  what  they 
would  Jind  on  dissection,  with  more  of  minuteness  than  accuracy,  deep- 
ening their  j'oung  wonder  into  awe,  and  begetting  a  rich  emulation  in 
all  these  arts  of  diagnosis,  — while  he  forgot  to  order  anything  for  the 
cure  or  relief  of  the  disease !  This  actually  happened  in  a  Parisian 
hospital,  and  an  Englishman,  with  his  practical  turn,  said  to  the 
lively,  clear-headed  professor,  "  But  what  are  you  going  to  give 
him  ?  "  "  Oh  ! "  shrugging  his  shoulders,  "I  quite  forgot  about  that ; " 
possibly  little  was  needed,  or  could  do  good,  but  that  little  should 
have  been  the  main  thing,  and  not  have  been  shrugged  at.  It  is  told 
of  another  of  our  Gallic  brethren,  that  having  discovered  a  specific  for 
a  skin  disease,  he  pursued  it  with  such  keenness  on  the  field  of  his 
patient's  surface,  that  he  perished  just  when  it  did.  On  going  into 
the  dead-house,  our  conqueror  examined  the  surface  of  the  subject 
with  much  interest,  and  some  complacency  —  not  a  vestige  of  disease  — 
or  life,  and  turning  on  his  heel,  said,  "  II  est  mort  gueri !  "  Cured 
indeed !  with  the  disadvantage,  single,  but  in  one  sense  infinite,  of  the 
man  being  dead ;  dead,  with  the  advantage,  general,  but  at  best  finite, 
of  the  scaly  tetter  being  cured. 

In  a  word,  let  me  say  to  my  young  medical  friends,  give  more  at- 
tention to  steady  common  observation  —  the  old  Hippocratic  aicpi'/Jeia, 
exactness,  literal  accuracy,  precision,  niceness  of  sense ;  what  Syden- 
ham  calls  the  natural  history  of  disease.  Symptoms  are  universally 
available;  they  are  the  voice  of  nature;  signs,  by  which  I  mean  more 
artificial  and  refined  means  of  scrutiny  —  the  stethoscope,  the  micro- 
scope, etc.  — are  not  always  within  the  power  of  every  man,  and,  with 
all  their  help,  are  additions,  not  substitutes.  Besides,  the  best  natural 
and  unassisted  observer  —  the  man  bred  in  the  constant  practice  of  keen 
discriminating  insight  —  is  the  best  man  for  all  instrumental  niceties; 
and  above  all.  the  faculty  and  habit  of  gathering  together  the  entire 


2-i  INTRODUCTION. 

has  gone,  I  hope,  to  its  utmost,  and  we  may  now  look 
for  the  system  breaking  up  into  small  bands  of  doers 
acting  under  the  Master,  rather  than  multitudes  of  mere 
listeners,  and  not  unoften  sleepers. 

Connected  with  this,  I  cannot  help  alluding  to  the 
crying  and  glaring  sin  of  publicity,  in  medicine,  as  in- 
deed in  everything  else.  Every  great  epoch  brings 
with  it  its  own  peculiar  curse  as  well  as  blessing,  and 
in  religion,  in  medicine,  in  everything,  even  the  most 

symptoms,  and  selecting  what  of  these  are  capital  and  special ;  and 
trusting  in  medicine  as  a  tentative  art,  which,  eren  at  its  utmost  con- 
ceivable perfection,  has  always  to  do  with  variable  quantities,  and  is 
conjectural  and  helpful  more  than  positive  and  all-sufficient,  content 
•with probabilities,  with  that  measure  of  •  uncertainty  which  experience 
teaches  us  attaches  to  even-thing  human  and  conditioned.  Here  are  the 
candid  and  wise  words  of  Professor  Syme:  "In  performing  an  opera- 
tion upon  the  living  body,  we  are  not  in  the  condition  of  a  blacksmith 
or  carpenter,  who  understands  precisely  the  qualities  of  the  materials 
upon  which  he  works,  and  can  depend  on  their  being  always  the  same. 
The  varieties  of  human  constitution  must  always  expose  our  proceed- 
ings to  a  degree  of  uncertainty,  and  render  even  the  slightest  liberties 
possibly  productive  of  the  most  serious  consequences;  so  that  the  ex- 
traction of  a  tooth,  the  opening  of  a  vein,  or  the  removal  of  a  small 
tumor,  has  been  known  to  prove  fatal.  Then  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  most  experienced,  careful,  and  skilful  operator  may  commit 
mistakes;  and  I  am  sure  that  there  is  no  one  of  the  gentlemen  present 
•who  can  look  back  on  his  practice  and  say  he  has  never  been  guilty  of 
an  error."  This  is  the  main  haunt  and  region  of  his  craft.  This  it  is 
that  makes  the  rational  practitioner.  Here  again,  as  in  religion,  men 
now-a-days  are  in  search  of  a  sort  of  fixed  point,  a  kind  of  demonstra- 
tion and  an  amount  of  certainty  which  is  plainly  not  intended;  for 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  of  these  compound  human  knowledges, 
"probability,"  as  the  great  and  modest  Bishop  Butler  says,  "is  the 
rule  of  life ; "  it  suits  us  best,  and  keeps  down  our  always  budding 
self-conceit  and  self-confidence.  Symptoms  are  the  body's  mother- 
tongue;  signs  arc  in  a  foreign  language;  and  there  is  an  enticing  ab- 
sorbing something  about  them,  which,  unless  feared  and  understood, 
I  have  sometimes  found  standing  in  the  way  of  the  others,  which  are 
the  staple  of  our  indications,  always  at  hand,  and  open  to  all. 


INTRODUCTION.  25 

sacred  and  private,  this  sin  of  publicity  now-a-days  most 
injuriously  prevails.  Every  one  talks  of  everything  and 
everybody,  and  at  all  sorts  of  times,  forgetting  that  the 
greater  and  the  better  —  the  inner  part,  of  a  man,  is, 
and  should  be  private  —  much  of  it  more  than  private. 
Public  piety,  for  instance,  which  means  too  much  the 
looking  after  the  piety  of  others  and  proclaiming  our 
own  —  the  Pharisee,  when  he  goes  up  to  the  temple  to 
pray,  looking  round  arid  criticising  his  neighbor  the  pub- 
lican, who  does  not  so  much  as  lift  up  his  eyes  even  to 
heaven  —  the  watching  and  speculating  on,  and  judging 
(scarcely  ever  with  mercy  or  truth)  the  intimate  and 
unspeakable  relations  of  our  fellow-creatures  to  their 
infinite  Father,  is  often  not  coexistent  with  the  inward 
life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man,  with  that  personal  state, 
which  alone  deserves  the  word  piety. 

So  also  in  medicine,  every  one  is  for  ever  looking 
after,  and  talking  of  everybody  else's  health,  and  advis- 
ing and  prescribing  either  his  or  her  doctor  or  drug,  and 
that  wholesome  modesty  and  shamefacedness,  which  I 
regret  to  say  is  now  old-fashioned,  is  vanishing  like  other 
things,  and  is  being  put  off,  as  if  modesty  were  a  mode, 
or  dress,  rather  than  a  condition  and  essence.  Besides 
the  bad  moral  habit  this  engenders,  it  breaks  up  what  is 
now  too  rare,  the  old  feeling  of  a  family  doctor  —  there 
are  now  as  few  old  household  doctors  as  servants  —  the 
familiar,  kindly,  welcome  face,  which  has  presided  through 
generations  at  births  and  deaths  ;  the  friend  who  bears 
about,  and  keeps  sacred,  deadly  secrets  which  must  be 
laid  silent  in  the  grave,  and  who  knows  the  kind  of  stuff 
his  stock  is  made  of,  their  "  constitutions,"  —  all  this 
sort  of  thing  is  greatly  gone,  especially  in  large  cities, 
and  much  from  this  love  of  change,  of  talk,  of  having 


26  INTRODUCTION. 

everything  explained,1  or  at  least  named,  especially  if  it 
be  in  Latin,  or  running  from  one  "  charming  "  specialist 
to  another  ;  of  doing  a  little  privately  2  and  dishonestly 

1  Dr.  Cullen's  words  are  weighty  :    "  Neither  the  aeutest  genius  nor 
the  soundest  judgment  will  avail  in  judging  of  a  particular  science,  ill 
regard  to  which  they  have  not  been  exercised.     /  have  been  olliyed  to 
please  my  patients  sometimes  with  reasons,  and  I  hare  found  (hat  any 
will  pass,  even  with  able  divines  and  acute  lawyers;  the  same  will  past 
with  the  husbands  as  with  the  wives." 

2  I  may  seem  too  hard  on  the  female  doctors,  but  I  am  not  half  so 
bard  or  so  bitter  as  the  old  Guy  (or,  as  his  accomplished  and  best  edi- 
tor, M.  Reveille'-Parise,  insists  on  calling  him,  Gui)  Patin.     I  have  af- 
terwards called  Dr.  J.  H.  Davidson  our  Scottish  Guy  Patin;  and  any 
one  who  knew  that  remarkable  man,  and  knows  the  Letters  of  the 
witty  and  learned  enemy  of  Mazarin,  of  antimony,  and  of  quacks, 
will  acknowledge  the  likeness.     Patin,  speaking  of  a  certain  Made- 
moiselle de  Label,  who  had  interfered  with  his  treatment,  says:  "  C'est 
un  sot  animal  qu'une  femme  qui  se  niele  de  notre  metier."    But  the  pas- 
sage is  so  clever  and  so  characteristic  of  the  man,  that  I  give  it  in  full : 
"Noel  Falconet  a  port4  lui-meme  la  lettre  a  Mademoiselle  de  Label; 
son  fils  est  encore  malade.    Elle  ne  m'a  point  voulu  croire  ;  et  au  lieu 
de  se  servir  de  mes  remedes,  elle  lui  a  donne1  des  siens,  quo  aynito  re~ 
cessi.     C'est  un  sot  animal  qu'une  femme  qui  se  mele  de  notre  metier: 
cela  n'appartient  qu'a  ceux  qui  out  un  haut-de-chausses  et  la  tt-te  bien 
faite.     J'avois  fait,  saigner  et  purger  ce  malade;  il  se  portoit  mieux; 
elle  me  dit  ensuite  que  mes  purgatifs  lui  avoient  fait  mal,  et  qu'elle  le 
purgeoit  de  ses  petits  remedes,  dout  elle  se  servoit  a  Lyon  autrefois. 
Quand  j'eus  reconnu  par  ces  paroles  qu'elle  ne  faisait  pas  grand  e'tat 
de  mes  ordonnances,  je  la  qurttai  la  et  ai  pratique1  le  pre'cepte,  sinite 
mortuos  sepelire  mortuos.     Peut-etre  pourtant  qu'il  en  re'chappera,  ce 
}ue  je  souhaite  de  tout  mon  coeur  ;  car  s'il  mouroit,  elle  diroit  que  ce 
fceroit  moi  qui  1'aurois  tue1.     Elle  a  temoigne"  a  Noel  Falconet  qu'elle 
avoit  regret  de  m'avoir  faclie1,  qu'elle  m'enverroit  de  1'argent  (je  n'ea 
ai  jamais  pris  d'eux).     Feu  M.  Hautin  disoit:   Per  monachos  et  mo- 
nachas,  cognatos  et  cognatas,  vicinos  et  ricinas  medicus  nonfacit  res 
suas.    Ce  u'est  pas  ii  faire  a,  une  femme  de  pratiquer  la  methode  de  Ga- 
lien,  res  est  sublimioris  intelligent  ice ;   il  faut  avoir  1'esprit  plus  fort. 
Mulier  est  animal  dimidiati  intellectus;  il  faut  qu'elles  filent  leur  que- 
nouille,  ou  an  moins,  comnie  dit  Saint  Paul,  contineant  se  in  silentio. 
Feu  M.  de  Villeroi,  le  grand  secretaire  d'Etat,  qui  avoit  une  mauvaise 
femme  (il  n'e"toit  pas  tout  seul,  et  la  race  n'en  e?*  oas  morte),  disoit 


INTRODUCTION.  27 

K)  one's  self  or  the  children  with  the  globules  ;  of  going 
to  see  some  notorious  great  man  without  telling  or  tak- 
ing with  them  their  old  family  friend,  merely,  as  they 
say,  "  to  satisfy  their  mind,"  and  of  course,  ending  in 
leaving,  and  affronting,  and  injuring  the  wise  and  good 
man.  I  don't  say  these  evils  are  new,  I  only  say  they 
are  large  and  active,  and  are  fast  killing  their  opposite 
virtues.  Many  a  miserable  and  tragic  story  might  be 
told  of  mothers,  whose  remorse  will  end  only  when  they 
themselves  lie  beside  some  dead  and  beloved  child, 
whom  they,  without  thinking,  without  telling  the  father, 
without  "  meaning  anything,"  have,  from  some  such 
grave  folly,  sent  to  the  better  country,  leaving  them- 
selves desolate  and  convicted.  Publicity,  itching  ears, 
want  of  reverence  for  the  unknown,  want  of  trust  in 
goodness,  want  of  what  we  call  faith,  want  of  gratitude 
and  fair  dealing,  on  the  part  of  the  public ;  and  on  the 
part  of  the  profession,  cupidity,  curiosity,  restlessness, 
ambition,  false  trust  in  self  and  in  science,  the  lust  and 
haste  to  be  rich,  and  to  be  thought  knowing  and  om- 
niscient, want  of  breeding  and  good  sense,  of  common 
honesty  and  honor,  these  are  the  occasions  and  results 
of  this  state  of  things. 

I  am  not,  however,  a  pessimist,  —  I  am,  I  trust,  a 
rational  optimist,  or  at  least  a  meliorist.  That  as  a  race, 
and  as  a  profession,  we  are  gaining,  I  don't  doubt ;  to 
disbelieve  this,  is  to  distrust  the  Supreme  Governor,  and 
to  miss  the  lesson  of  the  time,  which  is,  in  the  main, 

qu'en  latin  une  femme  dtoit  mulier,  c'est-a-dire  mule  hitr,  mule  demain, 
mule  tottjoura."  1 

1  Salomon  a  dit  quelqiio  part :  Tl  n'y  a  jtax  de  malice  au-dessus  rle  celle 
d'uneftmme.  Krasine  mit  ac&t«5  cette  reflexion:  Vous  observerez  qiSil  n'y 
wait  pas  encore  de  moines.  (II.  p.) 


2S  INTRODUCTION. 

enlargement  and  progress.  But  we  should  all  do  our 
best  to  keep  what  of  the  old  is  good,  and  detect,  and 
moderate,  and  control,  and  remove  what  of  the  new  is 
evil.  In  saying  this,  I  would  speak  as  much  to  myself 
as  to  my  neighbors.  It  is  in  vain,  that  yvwdi  creauToy 
(know  thyself)  is  for  ever  descending  afresh  and  silently 
from  heaven  like  dew ;  all  this  in  vain,  if  eywye  yiyvtoo-Kta 
(I  myself  know,  I  am  as  a  god,  what  do  I  not  know !) 
is  for  ever  speaking  to  us  from  the  ground  and  from 
ourselves. 

Let  me  acknowledge  —  and  here  the  principle  or 
habit  of  publicity  ha's  its  genuine  scope  and  power —  the 
immense  good  that  is  in  our  time  doing  by  carrying 
Hygienic  reform  into  the  army,  the  factory,  and  the 
nursery  —  down  rivers  and  across  fields.  I  see  in  all 
these  great  good  ;  but  I  cannot  help  also  seeing  those 
private  personal  dangers  I  have  spoken  of,  and  the 
masses  cannot  long  go  on  improving  if  the  individuals 
deteriorate. 

There  is  one  subject  which  may  seem  an  odd  one  for 
a  miscellaneous  book  like  this,  but  one  in  which  I  have 
long  felt  a  deep  and  deepening  concern.  To  be  brief 
and  plain,  I  refer  to  man-midwifery,  in  all  its  relations, 
—  professional,  social,  statistical,  and  moral.  I  have  no 
space  now  to  go  into  these  fulfy.  I  may,  if  some  one 
better  able  does  not  speak  out,  on  some  future  occasion 
try  to  make  it  plain  from  reason  and  experience,  that 
the  management  by  accoucheurs,  as  they  are  called,  of 
natural  labor,  and  the  separation  of  this  department  of 
the  human  economy  from  the  general  profession,  has 
been  a  greater  evil  than  a  good ;  and  that  we  have  little 
to  thank  the  Grand  Monarque  for,  in  this  as  in  many 
other  things,  when,  to  conceal  the  shame  of  the  gentle 


INTRODUCTION.  29 

La  Valliere,  he  sent  for  M.  Chison  instead  of  the  cus- 
-omary  sage-femme. 

Any  husband  or  wife,  any  father  or  mother,  who  will 
look  at  the  matter  plainly,  may  see  what  an  inlet  there 
is  here  to  possible  mischief,  to  certain  unseemliness,  and 
to  worse.  Nature  tells  us  with  her  own  voice  what  is 
fitting  in  these  cases  ;  and  nothing  but  the  omnipotence 
of  custom,  or  the  urgent  cry  of  peril,  terror,  and  agony, 
what  Luther  calls  miserrima  miseria,  would  make  her 
ask  for  the  presence  of  a  man  on  such  an  occasion,  when 
she  hides  herself,  and  is  in  travail.  And  as  in  all  such 
cases,  the  evil  reacts  on  the  men  as  a  special  class,  and 
on  the  profession  itself. 

It  is  not  of  grave  moral  delinquencies  I  speak,  and  the 
higher  crimes  in  this  region  ;  it  is  of  affront  to  Nature, 
and  of  the  revenge  which  she  always  takes  on  both  par- 
ties, who  actively  or  passively  disobey  her.  Some  of  my 
best  and  most  valued  friends  are  honored  members  of 
this  branch  ;  but  I  believe  all  the  real  good  they  can  do, 
and  the  real  evils  they  can  prevent  in  these  cases,  would 
be  attained,  if  —  instead  of  attending  —  to  their  own  lu- 
dicrous loss  of  time,  health,  sleep,  and  temper,  —  some 
200  cases  of  delivery  every  year,  the  immense  majority 
^f  which  are  natural,  and  require  no  interference,  but 
have  nevertheless  wasted  not  a  little  of  their  life,  their 
patience,  and  their  understanding  —  they  had,  as  I  would 
always  have  them  to  do,  and  as  any  well-educated  reso- 
..ute  doctor  of  medicine  ought  to  be  able  to  do,  confined 
themselves  to  giving  their  advice  and  assistance  to  the 
midwife  when  she  needed  it. 

I  know  much  that  may  be  said  against  this  —  igno- 
rance of  midwives ;  dreadful  effects  of  this,  etc. ;  but  to 
all  this  I  answer,  Take  pains  to  educate  carefully,  and  to 


30  INTRODUCTION. 

pay  well,  and  treat  well  these  women,  and  you  may 
safely  regulate  ulterior  means  by  the  ordinary  general 
laws  of  surgical  and  medical  therapeutics.  Why  should 
not  "  Peg  Tamson,  Jean  Simsou,  and  Alison  Jaup,"1  be 
sufficiently  educated  and  paid  to  enable  them  to  conduct 
victoriously  the  normal  obstetrical  business  of  "  Middle- 
mas  "  and  its  region,  leaving  to  "  Gideon  Gray  "  the  ab- 
normal, with  time  to  cultivate  his  mind  and  his  garden, 
or  even  a  bit  of  farm,  and  to  live  and  trot  less  hard  than 
he  is  at  present  obliged  to  do?  Thus,  instead  of  a  man 
in  general  practice,  and  a  man,  it  may  be,  with  an  area 
of  forty  miles  for  his  beat,  sitting  for  hours  at  the  bed- 
side of  a  healthy  woman,  his  other  patients  meanwhile 
doing  the  best  or  the  worst  they  can,  and  it  may  be,  as 
not  unfrequently  happens,  two  or  more  labors  going  on 
at  once ;  and  instead  of  a  timid,  ignorant,  trusting 
woman  —  to  whom  her  Maker  has  given  enough  of 
"  sorrow,"  and  of  whom  Shakespeare's  Constance  is  the 
type,  when  she  says,  "  I  am  sick,  and  capable  of  fears  ; 
I  am  full  of  fears,  subject  to  fears ;  I  am  a  woman,  and 
therefore  naturally  born  to  fears  "  —  being  in  this  hour 
of  her  agony  and  apprehension  subjected  to  the  artificial 
misery  of  fearing  the  doctor  may  be  too  late,  she  might 
have  the  absolute  security  and  womanly  hand  and  heart 
of  one  of  her  own  sex. 

This  subject  might  be  argued  upon  statistical  grounds, 
and  others ;  but  I  peril  it  chiefly  on  the  whole  system 
being  unnatural.  Therefore,  for  the  sake  of  those  who 
have  borne  and  carried  us,  and  whom  we  bind  ourselves 
to  love  and  cherish,  to  comfort  and  honor,  and  who  suffer 
so  much  that  is  inevitable  from  the  primal  curse,  —  for 
its  own  sake,  let  the  profession  look  into  this  entire  sub- 
1  Vide  Sir  Walter  Scott's  Surgeon's  Daughter. 


INTRODUCTION.  31 

ject  in  all  its  bearings,  honestly,  fearlessly,  and  at  once. 
Child-bearing  is  a  process  of  health  ;  the  exceptions  are 
ew  indeed,  and  would,  I  believe,  be  fewer  if  we  doctors 
would  let  well  alone. 

One  or  two  other  things,  and  I  am  done.  I  could 
have  wished  to  have  done  better  justice  to  that  noble 
class  of  men  —  our  country  practitioners,  who  dare  not 
B^eak  out  for  themselves.  They  are  underpaid  —  often 
tot  paid  at  all  —  underrated,  and  treated  in  a  way  that 
the  commonest  of  their  patients  would  be  ashamed  to 
treat  his  cobbler.  How  is  this  to  be  mended?  It  is 
mending  itself  by  the  natural  law  of  starvation,  and  de- 
scent per  deliquium.  Generally  speaking,  our  small 
towns  had  three  times  too  many  doctors,  and,  therefore, 
each  of  their  Gideon  Grays  had  two  thirds  too  little  to 
live  on ;  and  being  in  this  state  of  chronic  hunger  they 
were  in  a  state  of  chronic  anger  at  each  other  not  less 
steady,  with  occasional  seizures  more  active  and  acute ; 
they  had  recourse  to  all  sorts  of  shifts  and  meannesses 
to  keep  soul  and  body  together  for  themselves  and  their 
horse,  whilst  they  were  acting  with  a  devotion,  and,  gen- 
erally speaking,  with  an  intelligence  and  practical  be- 
neficence, such  as  I  know,  and  I  know  them  well, 
nothing  to  match.  The  gentry  are  in  this,  as  in  many 
country  things,  greatly  to  blame.  They  should  cherish, 
and  reward,  and  associate  with  those  men  who  are  in  all 
essentials  their  equals,  and  from  whom  they  would  gain 
as  much  as  they  give ;  but  this  will  right  itself  as  civil- 
ized mankind  return,  as  they  are  doing,  to  the  country, 
and  our  little  towns  will  thrive  now  that  lands  change, 
lairds  get  richer,  and  dread  the  city  as  they  should. 

The  profession  in  large  towns  might  do  much  for  their 
friends  who  can  do  so  little  for  themselves.  I  am  a  vol- 


32  INTRODUCTION. 

untary  in  religion,  and  would  have  all  State  churches 
abolished ;  but  I  have  often  thought  that  if  there  was  a 
class  that  ought  to  be  helped  by  the  State,  it  is  the  coun- 
try practitioners  in  wild  districts  ;  or  what  would  be  bet- 
ter, by  the  voluntary  association  of  those  in  the  district 
who  have  means  —  in  this  case  creeds  would  not  be 
troublesome.  However,  I  am  not  backing  this  scheme. 
I  would  leave  all  these  things  to  the  natural  laws  of 
supply  and  demand,  with  the  exercise  of  common  hon- 
esty, honor,  and  feeling,  in  this,  as  in  other  things. 

The  taking  the  wind  out  of  the  rampant  and  abomi 
nable  quackeries  and  patent  medicines,  by  the  State  with- 
drawing altogether  the  protection  and  sanction  of  its 
stamp,  its  practical  encouragement  (very  practical),  and 
giving  up  their  large  gains  from  this  polluted  and  wicked 
source,  would,  I  am  sure,  be  a  national  benefit.  Quack- 
ery, and  the  love  of  being  quacked,  are  in  human  nature 
as  weeds  are  in  our  fields ;  but  they  may  be  fostered 
into  frightful  luxuriance,  in  the  dark  and  rich  soil  of 
our  people,  and  not  the  less  that  Her  Majesty's  super- 
scription is  on  the  bottle  or  pot. 

I  would  beg  the  attention  of  my  elder  brethren  to 
what  I  have  said  on  Medical  Reform  and  the  doctrine  of 
free  competition.  I  feel  every  day  more  and  more  its 
importance  and  its  truth.  I  rejoice  many  ways  at  the 
passing  of  the  new  Medical  Bill,  and  the  leaving  so 
much  to  the  discretion  of  the  Council ;  it  is  curiously 
enough  almost  verbatim,  and  altogether  in  spirit,  the 
measure  Professor  Syme  has  been  for  many  years  advo- 
cating through  good  and  through  bad  report,  with  his 
characteristic  vigor  and  plainness.  Holloway's  Oint- 
ment, or  Parr's  Pills,  or  any  such  monstra  horrenda,  at- 
tain their  gigantic  proportions  and  power  of  doing  rnis- 


INTRODUCTION.  33 

chief,  greatly  by  their  having  Governmental  sanction 
and  protection.  Men  of  capital  are  thus  encouraged  to 
go  into  them,  and  to  spend  thousands  a  year  in  adver- 
tisements, and  newspaper  proprietors  degrade  themselves 
into  agents  for  their  sale.  One  can  easily  see  how 
harmless,  if  all  this  were  swept  away,  the  hundred  Hol- 
loways,  who  would  rise  up  and  speedily  kill  nobody  but 
each  other,  would  become,  instead  of  one  huge  inap- 
proachable monopolist ;  this  is  the  way  to  put  down 
quackery,  by  ceasing  to  hold  it  up.  It  is  a  disgrace  to 
our  nation  to  draw,  as  it  does,  hundreds  of  thousands  a 
year  from  these  wages  of  iniquity. 
23  RUTLAND  STREET,  October  30,  1858. 


POST-PREFACE. 

f|WO  hitherto  unpublished  letters  of  Locke  and 
Sydenham,  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  find  in 
the  British  Museum,  —  that  among  the  best 
and  chiefest  of  our  national  glories,  where,  strange  to 
say,  I  found  myself  for  the  first  time  the  other  day. 

Not  to  my  sorrow,  for  I  am  not  by  any  means  sure 
that  it  is  not  an  advantage  to  be  not  young  before  seeing 
and  feeling  some  things.  A  man  at  all  capable  of  ideal 
exquisiteness  has  a  keener  because  a  deeper  sense  of  the 
beauty  of  the  Clytie  —  of  the  awfulness  of  those  deep- 
bosomed  Fates,  resting  in  each  other's  laps,  "careless 
diffused  "  —  after,-  than  before  he  finds  himself 
"Nel  mezzo  del  caramin  di  nostra  vita." 

Time  and  suffering,  and  self-knowledge,  the  mystery, 
the  vanity  and  the  misery  of  life,  quicken  and  exalt  our 
sense  and  relish  of  that  more  ample  greatness,  that  more 
exact  goodness,  that  sense  of  God,1  which  the  contem- 

1  In  a  certain  and  large  sense  Malebranche  is  right.  We  see  every- 
thing in  God,  as  well  as  God  in  everj-thing;  all  beauty  of  thought, 
passion,  affection,  form,  sound,  color,  and  touch,  whatever  stirs  our 
mortal  and  immortal  frame,  not  only  comes  from,  but  is  centred  in 
God,  in  his  unspeakable  perfections.  This  we  believe  to  be  not  only 
.norally,  but  in  its  widest  sense,  philosophically  true,  as  the  white 
light  ravs  itself  out  into  the  prismatic  colors,  making  our  world  what 
it  is  —  as  if  all  that  we  behold  were  the  spectrum  of  the  unseen  Eternal. 
In  that  thinnest  but  not  least  great  of  his  works,  Mr.  Euskin's  sec- 


INTRODUCTION.  35 

plation  of  Nature  and  Art  at  their  utmost  of  power  and 
beauty  ought  always  to  awaken  and  fill.  It  is  the  clear 
shining  after  the  rain.  Pain  of  body  or  of  mind,  by  a 
double-edged,  but  in  the  main,  merciful  law  of  God  and 
of  our  nature,  quickens  and  exalts  other  senses  besides 
that  of  itself.  Well  is  it  that  it  does.  Sweetness  is 
sweeter  than  before  to  him  who  knows  what  bitterness 
has  been,  and  remembered  sweetness  too.  The  disloca- 
tion of  the  real  and  the  ideal  —  the  harsh  shock  of  which 
comes  on  most  men  before  forty,  and  OB  most  women 
sooner,  when  the  two  lines  run  on  together  —  sometimes 
diverging  frightfully,  for  the  most  part  from  their  own 
fault  —  but  never  meet,  makes  him-  look  out  all  the 
more  keenly  for  the  points  where  he  can  safely  shunt 
himself;  it  is  a  secret  worth  knowing  and  acting  upon, 
and  then  you  can  go  and  come  as  you  list.  This  is  our 
garden,  every  one's  garden  of  the  Hesperides,  into  which 
if  we  only  know  the  right  airt  and  door  —  it  is  small 
and  lowly,  and  made  for  children,  or  those  who  can 
stoop  and  make  themselves  so  for  the  nonce  —  we  may 
at  any  time  enter,  and  find  sunshine  and  shadows,  and 
soft  airs  and  clear  waters,  and  pluck  the  golden  apples 
from  the  laden  boughs.  And  though  the  Dragon  is 
there,  he  is  our  own  Dragon ;  and  it  adds  to  the  glory 
of  the  new-born  day,  and  gives  a  strange  flavor  of  peril 

and  volume  of  Modern  Painters,  there  may  be  found  the  best  un- 
folding I  know  of  the  doctrine  that  all  sublimity  and  all  beauty  is 
typical  of  the  attributes  of  God.  I  give  his  divisions,  which  are  them- 
selves eloquent:  —  Typical  Beauty:  first,  of  Infinity,  or  the  type  of 
Divine  Incomprehensibility ;  second,  of  Unity,  or  the  type  of  Divine 
Comprehensiveness ;  third,  of  Repose,  or  the  type  of  Divine  Perma- 
nence ;  fourth,  of  Symmetry,  or  the  type  of  Divine  Justice ;  fifth,  of 
Purity,  or  the  type  of  Divine  Energy  ;  lastly,  of  Moderation,  or  the 
type  of  Government  by  Law. 


36  INTRODUCTION. 

to  its  innocent  brightness,  when  we  see  on  the  horizon 
that  he  is  up  too,  and  watching,  lying  sinuous  and  im- 
mense all  across  the  Delectable  Mountains,  witli  his  chin 
on  his  paw  on  the  biggest  hill,  and  the  sunlight  touch- 
ing up  his  scales  with  gold  and  purple. 

This  is  our  Paradise  at  hand  —  next  door,  next  room, 
you  are  in  it  by  thinking  of  it,  it  comes  into  you  if  you 
open  your  door,  —  guarded  only  to  those  who  have  been 
cast  out  of  it,  and  under  whose  flaming  sword  the  small 
people  may  creep,  and  the  only  serpent  in  which  each 
must  himself  bring,  or  be  ;  and  then,  best  of  all  —  if 
you  are  in  the  right  garden  —  this  ideal  fruit  is  among 
the  best  of  whets  and  tonics,  and  strengthened  for  the 
hard  every-day  work,  and  still  harder  night-and-day  suf- 
fering of  that  real  world,  which  is  not  much  of  a  garden, 
but  rather  a  field  and  a  road,  with  graves  as  milestones. 
This  in  its  own  place,  wisely,  temperately  enjoyed,  ena- 
bles many  a  man  and  many  a  woman  to  lighten  some- 
what 

"  The  heavy  and  the  weary  weight 
Of  all  this  unintelligible  world,"  > 

and  go  on  their  way,  if  not  rejoicing,  at  least  patient 
and  thankful ;  and,  like  the  heroic  apostle,  sorrowful, 
yet  always  rejoicing. 

I  am  therefore  less  sorry  than  glad  that  I  was  as  old 
as  Cortez  when  he  first  gazed  on  the  Pacific,  before  I 
saw  the  Pyrenees,  and  the  Venus  of  Melos,  and  Ti- 
tian's Entombment,  and  Paul  Veronese's  Cain,  with  his 
wife  and  child,  and  the  Rhine  under  a  midnight  thunder- 
storm at  Coblentz,  and  the  Turners  at  Farnley  Hall; 
and  it  pleases  me  more  than  the  reverse,  to  think  that 
I  have  the  Alps,  and  Venice,  and  Memphis,  and  old 
Thebes,  yet  to  see,  and  a  play  or  two  of  Shakespeare's 


INTRODUCTION.  37 

to  read,  and  the  Mangostein  to  pluck  and  eat,  and  Niag- 
ara to  hear. 

But  one  thing  I  am  glad  to  have  seen,  and  not  to 
have  seen  it  till  I  did,  and  that  is  the  Panizzi  Reading 
Room  in  the  British  Museum,  where  you  may  any  day 
see  three  hundred,  feeding  silently  like  one,  browsing 
each  as  if  alone  in  his  own  chosen  pasture.  There  can 
never  be  any  nobler  or  more  fitting  monument  to  that 
great  man,  who  is  the  informing  spirit,  the  soul  and  mo- 
tive power  of  that  amazing  concentration  and  record  of 
human  conquest  and  progress,  —  whose  prodigious  brain 
and  will  has  reared 

"This  dome  of  thought,  this  palace  of  the  soul," 

and  whose  formidable  understanding  and  inevitable  vis- 
age fronts  you  in  Marochetti's  marble  as  you  enter  —  a 
head  of  the  genuine  old  Roman  build,  an  unmistakable 
rerum  dominus. 

The  letter  now  printed  at  page  121  was  written  two 
months  later  than  th'e  one  quoted  at  page  47,  and  on  the 
same  subject. 

I  like  this  letter  exceedingly,  every  word  of  it,  and 
wish  I  could  ask  the  delightful  and  omniscient  Notes 
and  Queries  who  "  Tom  Bagnall  "  was,  and  what  is  the 
joke  of  "  the  thrushes  and  fieldfares,"  and  the  "  hey 
trony  nony."  The  solemn  and  prolonged,  but  genial 
banter  about  "  t'  other  condition  "  is  very  pleasant  and 
characteristic ;  the  desipience  of  such  a  man  as  John 
Locke  is  never  out  of  place,  and  is  as  sweet  to  listen  to 
now  as  it  could  have  been  to  his  thoughtful  and  affec- 
tionate self  to  indulge  in,  a  hundred  and  eighty  years, 
and  more  ago. 


38  INTRODUCTION. 

In  the  same  MS.  volume  in  which  I  found  this  letter 
is  a  case-book  of  Locke's,  in  his  own  neat  hand,  written 
in  Latin  (often  slovenly  and  doggish  enough),  and  which 
shows,  if  there  were  any  further  need,  that  he  was  in 
active  practice  in  1667.  The  title  in  the  Museum  vol- 
ume is  "  Original  Medical  Papers  by  John  Locke,  pre- 
sented by  Wm.  Seward,  Esq. ;  "  and  its  contents  are  — 

1.  Hydrops. 

2.  Rheumatismus. 

3.  Hydrops. 

4.  Febris  luflammatoria. 

To  us  now  it  seems  curious  to  think  of  the  author  of 
the  Essay  on  Human  Understanding  recording  all  the 
aches  and  doses  and  minute  miseries  of  an  ancilla  culm- 
aria  virgo,  and  to  find  that  after  a  long  and  -anxious  case 
he  was  turned  off,  when,  as  he  says,  his  impatient  pa- 
tient olio  advocato  medico  erumpsit  (!) 

I  cannot  help  reminding  my  young  friends  of  the 
value  of  his  posthumous  little  book  on  the  Conduct  of 
the  Understanding.  I  am  glad  to  see  that  Bell  and 
Daldy  have  published  this  precious  legacy  to  the  youth 
of  England  for  the  first  time,  (!)  introduced  and  edited 
by  Mr.  Bolton  Corney  :  it  is  a  book  every  father  should 
give  his  son. 

There  is  interesting  matter  in  this  letter  besides  its 
immediate  subjects  ;  and  some  things,  I  rather  think,  un- 
known before  of  Sydenham's  college  life.  It  is  the  only 
bit  of  English  by  its  author,  except  a  letter  to  the  Hon- 
orable Robert  Boyle,  quoted  in  Latham's  Life. 

23  RUTLAND  STREET,  October  13,  1859. 


LOCKE  AND    SYDENHAM. 


"Us  n'etoient  pas  Savans,  mais  Us  etoient  Sages." 


"  PHILOSOPHIA  dinditur  in  SCIENTIAM  et  HABITUM 
unam   illam  qui  didicit,  et  favenda   et  vitanda  prcecepit,  nondum 
SAPIENS  est,  nisi  in  ea  qua  didicit,  animus  ejus  transfiguratus  est." 


LOCKE  AND  SYDENHAM. 

studies  of  Metaphysics  and  Medicine  have 
more  in  common  than  may  perhaps  at  first 
sight  appear.  These  two  sciences,  as  learnt, 
taught,  and  practised  by  the  two  admirable  men  we  are 
about  to  speak  of,  were  ill  the  main  not  ends  in  them- 
selves, but  means.  The  one,  as  Locke  pursued  it,  is  as 
truly  a  search  after  truth  and  matter  of  fact,  as  the 
other ;  and  neither  Metaphysics  nor  Medicine  is  worth 
a  rational  man's  while,  if  they  do  not  issue  certainly  and 
speedily  in  helping  us  to  keep  and  to  make  our  minds 
and  our  bodies  whole,  quick,  and  strong.  Soundness  of 
mind,  the  just  use  of  reason  —  what  Arnauld  finely  calls 
droiture  de  I'dme  —  and  the  cultivation  for  good  of  our 
entire  thinking  nature,  our  common  human  understand- 
ing, is  as  truly  the  one  great  end  of  the  Philosophy  of 
Mind,  as  the  full  exercise  of  our  bodily  functions,  and 
their  recovery  and  relief,  when  deranged  or  impaired,  is 
of  the  Science  of  Medicine,  —  the  Philosophy  of  Heal- 
ing ;  and  no  man  taught  the  world  to  better  purpose 
than  did  John  Locke,  that  Mental  science,  like  every 
other,  is  founded  upon  fact — upon  objective  realities, 
upon  an  induction  of  particulars,  and  is  in  this  sense  as 
much  a  matter  of  proof  as  is  carpentry,  or  the  doctrine 
of  projectiles.  The  Essay  on  Human  Understanding 
contains  a  larger  quantity  of  facts  about  our  minds,  a 
greater  amount  of  what  everybody  knows  to  be  true, 


42  LOCKE  AND  SYDENHAM. 

than  any  other  book  of  the  same  nature.  The  reason- 
ings may  be  now  and  then  erroneous  and  imperfect,  but 
the  ascertained  truths  remain,  and  may  be  operated  upon 
by  all  after-comers. 

John  Locke  and  Thomas  Sydenham  —  the  one  the 
founder  of  our  analytical  philosophy  of  mind,  ami  the 
other  of  our  practical  medicine  —  were  not  only  great 
personal  friends,  but  were  of  essential  use  to  each  other 
in  their  respective  departments ;  and  we  may  safely 
affirm,  that  for  much  in  the  Essay  on  Human  Under- 
standing we  are  indebted  to  its  author's  intimacy  with 
Sydenham,  "  one  of  the  master  builders  at  this  time  in 
the  commonwealth  of  learning,"  as  Locke  calls  him,  in 
company  with  "  Boyle,  Huygens,  and  the  incomparable 
Mr.  Newton."  And  Sydenham,  it  is  well  known,  in  his 
dedicatory  letter  to  their  common  friend  Dr.  Mapletoft, 
prefixed  to  the  third  edition  of  his  Observations  Med- 
icce,  expresses  his  obligation  to  Locke  in  these  words : 
"  Nosti  prceterea,  quam  huic  meae  methodo  suffragantem 
habeam,  qui  earn  intimius  per  ornnia  perspexerat,  utrique 
nostrum  conjunctissimum  Domimim  Johannem  Lock  ; 
quo  quidem  viro,  sive  ingenio  judicioque  acri  et  suh- 
acto,  sive  etiam  antiquis  (hoc  est  optimis)  moribus,  vix 
superiorem  quenquam  inter  eos  qui  nunc  sunt  homines 
repertum  iri  confido,  paucissimos  certe  pares."  Refer- 
ring to  this  passage,  when  noticing  the  early  training  of 
this  ingenium  judiciumque  acre  et  subactum,  Dugald 
Stewart  says,  with  great  truth,  "  Xo  science  could  have 
been  chosen,  more  happily  calculated  than  Medicine,  to 
prepare  such  a  mind  for  the  prosecution  of  those  spec- 
ulations which  have  immortalized  his  name ;  the  com- 
plicated and  fugitive  and  often  equivocal  phenomena 
of  disease  requiring  in  the  observer  a  far  greater  pro- 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  43 

portion  of  discriminating  sagacity  than  those  of  Physics, 
strictly  so  called ;  resembling,  in  this  respect  much  more 
nearly,  the  phenomena  about  which  Metaphysics,  Ethics, 
and  Politics  are  conversant."  And  he  shrewdly  adds, 
"  I  have  said  that  the  study  of  Medicine  forms  one  of 
the  best  preparations  for  the  study  of  Mind,  to  such  an 
understanding  as  Locke's.  To  an  understanding  less 
comprehensive,  and  less  cultivated  by  a  liberal  educa- 
tion, the  effect  of  this  study  is  like  to  be  similar  to  what 
we  may  have  in  the  works  of  Hartley,  Darwin,  and 
Cabanis  ;  to  all  of  whom  we  may  more  or  less  apply  the 
sarcasm  of  Cicero  on  Aristoxenus  the  musician,  who  at- 
tempted to  explain  the  nature  of  the  soul  by  comparing 
it  to  a  harmony  ;  Hie  ab  artificio  suo  non  recessit." 

The  observational  and  only  genuine  study  of  mind  — 
not  the  mere  reading  of  metaphysical  books,  and  know- 
ing the  endless  theories  of  mind,  but  the  true  study  of 
its  phenomena  —  has  always  seemed  to  us  (speaking 
gud  medici)  one  of  the  most  important,  as  it  certainly  is 
the  most  studiously  neglected,  of  the  accessary  disci- 
plines of  the  student  of  medicine. 

Hartley,  Mackintosh,  and  Brown  were  physicians ; 
and  we  know  that  medicine  was  a  favorite  subject  with 
Socrates,  Aristotle,  Bacon,  Descartes,  Berkeley,  and  Sir 
William  Hamilton.  We  wish  our  young  doctors  kept 
more  of  the  company  of  these  and  suchlike  men,  and 
knew  a  little  more  of  the  laws  of  thought,  the  nature 
and  rules  of  evidence,  the  general  procedure  of  their 
own  minds  in  the  search  after  the  proof  and  the  applica- 
tion of  what  is  true,  than  we  fear  they  generally  do.1 

1  Pinel  states,  with  much  precision,  the  necessity  there  is  for  physi 
cians  to  make  the  mind  of  man,  as  \vell  as  his  body,  their  especial  study. 
"L'histoire  de  1'entendement  humain,  pourroit-elle  etre  ignoree  par  le 


44  LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM. 

They  might  do  so  without  knowing  less  of  their  Aus- 
cultation, Histology,  and  other  good  things,  and  with 
knowing  them  to  better  purpose.  "We  wonder,  for  in- 
stance, how  many  of  the  century  of  graduates  sent  forth 
from  our  famous  University  every  year  —  armed  with 
microscope,  stethoscope,  uroscope,  pleximeter,  etc.,  and 
omniscient  of  rules  and  rhonchi  sibilous  and  sonorous ; 
crepitations  moist  and  dry ;  bruits  de  rape,  de  scie,  et  de 
soufflet  ;  blood  plasmata,  cytoblasts  and  nucleated  cells, 
and  great  in  the  infinitely  little,  —  we  wonder  how 
many  of  these  eager  and  accomplished  youths  could 
"unsphere  the  spirit  of  Plato,"  or  are  able  to  read  with 
moderate  relish  and  understanding  one  of  the  Tusculan 
Disputations,  or  have  so  much  as  even  heard  of  Butler's 
Three  Sermons  on  Human  Nature,  Berkeley's  Minute 
Philosopher,  or  of  a  posthumous  Essay  on  the  Conduct 
of  the  Understanding?  of  which  Mr.  Hallam  says,  "  I 
cannot  think  any  parent  or  instructor  justified  in  neglect- 
ing to  put  this  little  treatise  in  the  hands  of  a  boy  about 
the  time  that  the  reasoning  faculties  become  developed," 
and  whose  admirable  author  we  shall  now  endeavor  to 
prove  to  have  been  much  more  one  of  their  own  guild 
than  is  generally  supposed. 

In  coming  to  this  conclusion,  we  have  been  mainly  in- 
debted to  the  classical,  eloquent,  and  conclusive  tract  by 

me'decin,  qui  a  non-seulement  a  de"crire  les  ve'sanies  ou  maladies  mo- 
rales, et  a  indiquer  toutes  leurs  nuances,  mais  encore,  qui  a  besoin  de 
porter  la  logique  la  plus  severe  pour  eViter  de  donner  de  la  rdalite'  a 
de  terraes  abstraits,  pour  proce'der  avec  sagesse  des  ide"es  simples  a  de3 
ide'es  complexes,  et  qui  a  sans  cesse  sous  ses  yeux  des  cents  oil  le  d&- 
faut  de  s'entendre,  la  seduction  de  1'esprit  de  systeme,  et  1'abus  des 
expressions  vagues  et  inde'termine'es  ont  amene"  de  milliers  des  volumes 
et  des  disputes  interminables  ?  "  —  Methodes  d'etudier  en  Medecine. 

1  There  is  a  handsome  reprint  of  this  "  pith  of  sense  "  put  forth  the 
other  day  by  Bell  &  Daldy. 


LOCKE  AND   SYDEXHAM.  45 

Lord  Grenville,1  entitled,  Oxford'  and  Locke;  to  Lord 
King's  Life  of  his  great  kinsman;  to  Wood's  Athence  and 
Fasti  Oxonienses ;  to  the  letters  from  Locke  to  Drs. 
Mapletoft,  Molyneux,  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  and  Boyle,  pub- 
lished in  the  collected  edition  of  his  works  ;  to  Ward's 
Lives  of  the  Gresham  Professors ;  and  to  a  very  curious 
collection  of  letters  of  Locke,  Algernon  Sidney,  the 
second  Lord  Shaftesbary,  and  others,  edited  and  pri- 
vately printed  by  Dr.  Thomas  Forster  ;  and  to  a  Medi- 
cal Commonplace  Book,  and  many  very  interesting  let- 
ters on  medical  subjects,  by  his  great  kinsman,  in  the 
possession  of  the  Earl  of  Lovelace,  and  to  which,  by  his 
Lordship's  kindness,  we  have  had  access  ;  some  of  the 
letters  are  to  Fletcher  of  Saltoun,  on  the  health  of  his 
brother's  wife,  and,  for  unincumbered  good  sense,  ra- 
tional trust  in  nature's  vis  medicatrix,  and  wholesome 
fear  of  polypharmacy  and  the  nimia  diligentia  of  his 
time,  might  have  been  written  by  Dr.  Combe  or  Sir 
Tames  Clark. 

Le  Clerc,  in  his  Eloge  upon  Locke  in  the  Bibliotheque 
Choisie  (and  in  this  he  has  been  followed  by  all  subse- 
quent biographers),  states,  that  when  a  student  at  Christ 
Church,  Oxford,  he  devoted  himself  with  great  earnest- 
ness to  the  study  of  Medicine,  but  that  he  never  prac- 
tised it  as  his  profession,  his  chief  object  having  been  to 
qualify  himself  to  act  as  his  own  physician,  on  account 
of  his  general  feebleness  of  health,  and  tendency  to  con- 
sumption. To  show  the  incorrectness  of  this  statement, 
we  give  the  following  short  notice  of  his  medical  studies 
and  practice ;  it  is  necessarily  slight,  but  justifies,  we 
think,  our  assertion  in  regard  to  him  as  a  practitioner  in 
medicine. 

i  See  Note  A. 


46  LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM. 

LOCKE  was  born  in  1632  at  Wrington,  Somersetshire, 
on  the  29th  of  August,  the  anniversary,  as  Dr.  Forster 
takes  care  to  let  us  know,  of  the  Decollation  of  St. 
John  the  Baptist  —  eight  years  after  Sydenham,  and  ten 
before  Newton.  He  left  Westminster  School  in  1651, 
and  entered  Christ  Church,  distinguishing  himself  chiefly 
in  the  departments  of  medicine  and  general  physics,  and 
greatly  enamored  of  the  brilliant  and  then  new  philos- 
ophy of  Descartes. 

In  connection  with  Locke's  university  studies,  An- 
thony Wood,  in  his  autobiography,  has  the  following  cu- 
rious passage :  "  I  began  a  course  of  chemistry  under 
the  noted  chemist  and  rosicrucian  Peter  Sthael  of  Stras- 
burg,  a  strict  Lutheran,  and  a  great  hater  of  women. 
The  club  consisted  of  ten,  whereof  were  Frank  Turner, 
now  Bishop  of  Ely,  Benjamin  Woodroof,  now  Canon  of 
Christ  Church,  and  John  Locke  of  the  same  house,  now 
a  noted  writer.  This  same  John  Locke  was  a  man  of  a 
turbulent  spirit,  clamorous,  and  never  contented ;  while 
the  rest  of  our  club  took  notes  from  the  mouth  of  their 
master,  who  sat  at  the  upper  end  of  a  long  table,  the 
said  Locke  scorned  to  do  this,  but  was  for  ever  prating 
and  troublesome."  This  misogynistical  rosicrucian  was 
brought  over  to  Oxford  by  Boyle,  and  had  among  his  pu- 
pils Sir  Christoper  Wren,  Dr.  Wallis,  and  Sir  Thomas 
Millington.  The  fees  were  three  pounds,  one-half  paid 
in  advance. 

Locke  continued  through  life  greatly  addicted  to  med- 
ical and  chemical  researches.  He  kept  the  first  regular 
journal  of  the  weather,  and  published  it  from  time  to 
time  in  the  Philosophical  Transactions,  and  in  Boyle's 
History  of  the  Air.  He  used  in  his  observations  a  ba- 
rometer, a  thermometer,  and  a  hygrometer.  His  letters 


LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM.  47 

to  Boyle  are  full  of  experiments  and  speculations  about 
chemistry  and  medicine  ;  and  in  a  journal  kept  by  him 
when  travelling  in  France  is  this  remarkable  entry : 
"  M.  Toinard  produced  a  large  bottle  of  muscat ;  it  was 
clear  when  he  set  it  on  the  table,  but  when  the  stopper 
was  drawn,  a  multitude  of  little  bubbles  arose.  It  comes 
from  this,  that  the  included  air  had  liberty  to  expand  it- 
self :  — query,  whether  this  be  air  new  generated.  Take 
a  bottle  of  fermenting  liquor,  and  tie  a  bladder  over  its 
mouth,  how  much  new  air  will  this  produce,  and  has  this 
the  quality  of  common  air  ?"  "We  need  hardly  add,  that 
about  a  hundred  years  after  this  Dr.  Black  answered 
this  capital  query,  and  in  doing  sp,  transformed  the 
whole  face  of  chemistry. 

We  now  find  that,  in  contradiction  to  the  generally 
received  account,  "  sour  "  Anthony  Wood,  who  was  an 
Oxford  man  and  living  on  the  spot,  says  in  his  spiteful 
way,  "  Mr.  Locke,  after  having  gone  through  the  usual 
courses  preparatory  to  practice,  entered  upon  the  physic 
line  and  got  some  business  at  Oxford."  Nothing  can  be 
more  explicit  than  this,  and  more  directly  opposed  to  Le 
Clerc's  account  of  his  friend's  early  life,  which,  it  may  be 
remembered,  was  chiefly  derived  from  notes  furnished 
by  the  second  Lord  Shaftesbury,  whose  information 
must  necessarily  have  been  at  second  or  third  hand.  In 
1GG6,  Lord  Ashley,  afterwards  the  first  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury, came  to  Oxford  to  drink  the  water  of  Astrop  ;  he 
was  suffering  from  an  abscess  in  his  chest,  the  conse- 
quence of  a  fall  from  his  horse.  Dr.  Thomas,  his  lord- 
ship's attendant,  happening  to  be  called  out  of  town, 
sent  his  friend  Locke,  then  practising  there,  who  exam- 
ined into  his  complaints,  and  advised  the  abscess  to  be 
opened ;  this  was  done,  and,  as  the  story  goes,  his  lord 


48  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

ship's  life  was  saved.  From  this  circumstance  took  its 
origin  the  well-known  friendship  of  these  two  famous 
men.  That  their  connection  at  first  was  chiefly  that  of 
patient  and  doctor,  is  plain  from  the  expression,  "  lie, 
the  Earl,  would  not  suffer  him  to  practise  medicine  out 
of  his  house,  except  among  some  of  his  particular 
friends,"  implying  that  he  was  practising  when  he  took 
him. 

In  1668,  Locke,  then  in  his  thirty-sixth  year,  accom- 
panied the  Earl  and  Countess  of  Northumberland  to  the 
Continent,  as  their  physician.  The  Earl  died  on  his 
journey  to  Rome,  leaving  Locke  with  the  Countess  in 
Paris.  When  there,  he  attended  her  during  a  violent 
attack  of  what  seems  to  have  been  tic-douloureux,  an  in- 
teresting account  of  which,  and  of  the  treatment  he 
adopted,  was  presented  by  the  late  Lord  King  to  the 
London  College  of  Physicians  —  and  read  before  them 
in  1829.  By  the  great  kindness  of  the  late  Dr.  Paris, 
President  of  the  College,  we  had  access  to  a  copy  of  this 
medical  and  literary  curiosity,  which,  besides  its  own 
value  as  a  plain,  clear  statement  of  the  case,  and  as  an 
example  of  simple  skilful  treatment,  is  the  best  of  all 
proofs  that  at  that  time  Locke  was  a  regular  physician. 
We  cannot  give  it  higher  praise,  or  indicate  more  signif- 
icantly its  wonderful  superiority  to  the  cases  to  be  found 
in  medical  authors  of  the  same  date,  than  by  saying  that 
in  expression,  in  description,  in  diagnosis,  and  in  treat- 
ment, it  differs  very  little  from  what  we  have  in  our  own 
best  works. 

After  the  Earl's  death,  Locke  returned  to  England, 
and  seems  to  have  lived  partly  at  Exeter  House  with 
Lord  Shaftesbury,  and  partly  at  Oxford.  It  was  in 
1670,  at  the  latter  place,  that  he  sketched  the  first  out- 


LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM.  49 

line  of  bis  immortal  Essay,  the  origin  of  which  he  has 
so  modestly  recorded  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Reader.  Dr. 
Thomas,  and  most  probably  Dr.  Sydenham,  were  among 
the  "  live  or  six  friends  meeting  at  my  chamber,"  who 
started  the  idea  of  that  work,  "  which  has  done  more 
than  any  other  single  work  to  rectify  prejudice,  to  un- 
dermine established  errors,  to  diffuse  a  just  mode  of 
thinking,  to  excite  a  fearless  spirit  of  inquiry,  and  yet 
to  contain  it  within  the  boundaries  nature  has  set  to  the 
human  faculties.  If  Bacon  first  discovered  the  rules  by 
whicli  knowledge  is  to  be  advanced,  Locke  has  most 
contributed  by  precept  and  example  to  make  mankind  at 
large  observe  them,  and  has  thus  led  to  that  general  dif- 
fusion of  a  healthful  and  vigorous  understanding,  which 
is  at  once  the  greatest  of  all  improvements,  and  the 
instrument  by  which  all  other  improvements  must  be 
accomplished." 

About  this  time,  Locke  seems  to  have  been  made  a 
Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society.  In  1674,  he  took  the  de- 
gree of  Bachelor  of  Medicine  ;  he  "never  was  Doctor  of 
Medicine,  though  he  generally  passed  among  his  friends 
as  Dr.  Locke.  « 

In  1G75,  he  went  abroad  for  his  health,  and  appar- 
ently, also,  to  pursue  his  medical  studies.  He  remained 
for  some  time  at  Montpellier,  then  the  most  famous  of 
the  schools  of  medicine.  He  attended  the  lectures  of 
the  celebrated  Barbeyrac,  to  whose  teaching  Sydenham 
is  understood  to  have  been  so  much  indebted.  When 
there,  and  during  his  residence  abroad,  he  kept  a  diary, 
large  extracts  from  which  are  for  the  first  time  given  by 
Lord  King.1  The  following  is  his  account  of  -the  an- 

1  Lord  King  refers  to  numerous  passages  in  Locke's  Diaries  exclu- 
sively devoted  to  medical  subjects,  which  lie  has  refrained  from  pub- 
4 


50  LOCKE  AND   SYDEXHAM. 

nual  "  capping  "  at  Montpellier.  "  The  manner  of  mak- 
ing a  Doctor  of  Physic  is  this :  —  1st,  a  procession  in 
scarlet  robes  and  black  caps  —  the  professor  took  his 
seat  —  and  after  a  company  of  fiddlers  had  played  a  cer- 
tain time,  he  made  them  a  sign  to  hold,  that  he  might 
have  an  opportunity  to  entertain  the  company,  which  he 
did  in  a  speech  against  innovations  —  the  musicians  then 
took  their  turn.  The  Inceptor  or  candidate  then  began 
his  speech,  wherein  I  found  little  edification,  being 
chiefly  complimentary  to  the  chancellor  and  professors, 
who  were  present.  The  Doctor  then  put  on  his  head 
the  cap  that  had  marched  in  on  the  beadle's  staff,  in  sign 
of  his  doctorship  —  put  a  ring  upon  his  finger  —  girt 
himself  about  the  loins  with  a  gold  chain  —  made  him 
sit  down  beside  him  —  that  having  taken  pains  he  might 
now  take  ease,  and  kissed  and  embraced  him  in  token  of 
the  friendship  which  ought  to  be  amongst  them." 

From  Montpellier  he  went  to  Paris,  and  was  a  dili- 
gent student  of  anatomy  under  Dr.  Guenelon,  with 
whom  he  was  afterwards  so  intimate,  when  living  in 
exile  at  Amsterdam. 

In  June  1G77,  when  in  Paris,  he  wrote  the  following 
jocular  letter  to  his  friend  Dr.  Mapletoft,  then  physic 
professor  at  Gresham  College.  This  letter,  which  is  not 
noticed  in  any  life  of  Locke  that  we  have  seen,  is  thus 
introduced  by  Dr.  Ward: — "Dr.  Mapletoft  did  not 

lishing,  as  unlikely  to  interest  the  general  public ;  and  Dr.  Forster 
gives  us  to  understand  that  he  has  in  his  possession  "some  ludicrous, 
sarcastic,  and  truly  witty  letters  to  his  friend  Furley  on  medicine,  his 
original  profession ;  "  but  which  letters  the  Doctor  declines  Riving  to 
the  public  "in  these  days  of  absurd  refinement."  We  would  gladly 
forswear  our  refinement  to  have  a  sight  of  them  ;  anything  that  Locke 
considered  worth  the  writing  down  about  anything  is  likely  to  be 
worth  the  reading. 


LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM.  i>l 

sontinue  long  at  Gresliam,  and  yet  longer  than  he  seenis 
to  have  designed,  by  a  letter  to  him,  written  by  the  fa- 
mous Mr.  John  Locke,  dated  from  Paris,  22d  June  1677, 
in  which  is  this  passage :  '  If  either  absence  (which 
sometimes  increases  our  desires)  or  love  (which  we  see 
every  day  produces  strange  effects  in  the  world)  have 
softened  you,  or  disposed  you  towards  a  liking  for  any 
of  our  fine  new  things,  't  is  but  saying  so,  and  I  am  ready 
to  furnish  you,  and  should  be  sorry  not  to  be  employed ; 
I  mention  love,  for  you  know  I  have  a  particular  inter- 
est of  my  own  in  it.  When  you  look  that  way,  nobody 
will  be  readier,  as  you  may  guess,  to  throw  an  old  shoe 
after  you,  much  for  your  own  sake,  and  a  little  for  a 
friend  of  yours.  But  were  I  to  advise,  perhaps  I  should 
say  that  the  lodgings  at  Gresham  College  were  a  quiet 
and  comfortable  habitation.'  By  this  passage,"  con- 
tinues Ward,  "it  seems  probable  that  Dr.  Mapleteft  had 
then  some  views  to  marriage,  and  that  Dr.  Luoke  was 
desirous,  should  it  so  fall  out,  to  succeed  him.  But 
neither  of  these  events  happened  at  the  time,  for  the 
Dr.  held  his  professorship  till  the  10th  October  1G79,  and, 
in  November  following,  married  Rebecca,  the  daughtei 
of  Mr  Lucy  Knightley  of  Hackney,  a  Hamburg  mer- 
chant." And  we  know  that  on  the  10th  of  May  that 
same  year,  Locke  was  sent  for  from  Paris  by  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  when  his  Lordship  was  made  President  of 
Sir  William  Temple's  Council,  half  a  year  after  which 
they  were  both  exiles  in  Holland.  As  we  have  already 
said,  there  is  something  very  characteristic  in  this  jocu- 
lar, paivky,  affectionate  letter. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  from  this,  that  so  late  as 
1677,  when  he  was  forty-five  years  of  age,  Locke  was 
able  and  willing  to  undertake  the  formal  teaching  of 
medicine. 


52  LOCKE  AND   SYDEXHAM. 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  say  how  much  mankind  would 
have  at  once  lost  and  gained  —  how  much  the  philosophy 
of  mind  would  have  been  hindered,  and  how  much  that 
of  medicine  would  have  been  advanced,  had  John  Locke's 
lungs  been  as  sound  as  his  understanding,  and  h;ul  he 
"stuck  to  the  physic  line,"  or  had  his  friend  Dr.  Maple- 
toft  "  looked  that  way "  a  little  earlier,  and  made  Re- 
becca Knightley  his  wife  two  years  sooner,  or  had  Lord 
Shaftesbury  missed  the  royal  reconcilement  and  his  half- 
year's  presidency. 

Medicine  would  assuredly  have  gained  something  it 
still  lacks,  and  now  perhaps  more  than  ever,  had  that 
"  friend  of  yours,"  having  thrown  the  old  shoe  with  due 
solemnity  and  precision  after  the  happy  couple,  much 
for  their  sakes  and  a  little  for  his  own,  settled  down  in 
that  quiet,  comfortable,  baccalaurian  habitation,  over- 
against  the  entrance  into  Bishopsgate  Street ;  and  had 
thenceforward,  in  the  prime  of  life,  directed  the  full 
vigor  of  that  liberal,  enlightened,  sound,  humane,  and 
practical  understanding,  to  the  exposition  of  what  Lord 
Grenville  so  justly  calls  "  the  large  and  difficult"  sub- 
ject of  medicine.  "What  an  amount  of  gain  to  rational 
and  effective  medicine  —  what  demolition  of  venerable 
and  mischievous  error  —  what  fearless  innovations  — 
what  exposition  of  immediately  useful  truth  —  what  an 
example  for  all  future  laborers  in  that  vast  and  perilous 
field,  of  the  best  method  of  attaining  the  best  ends,  might 
not  have  been  expected  from  him  of  whom  it  was  truly 
said  that  "  he  knew  something  of  everything  that  could 
be  useful  to  mankind  !  "  It  is  no  wonder  then,  that, 
looking  from  the  side  of  medicine,  we  grudge  the  loss 
of  the  Locke  "  Physic  Lectures,"  and  wish  that  we 
might,  without  fable,  imagine  ourselves  in  that  quaint, 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  53 

Bteep-roofed  quadrangle,  with  its  fifteen  trees,  and  its 
diagonal  walks  across  the  green  court ;  and  at  eight 
o'clock,  when  the  morning  sun  was  falling  on  the  long 
legs  and  antennae  of  good  Sir  Thomas's  gilded  grasshop- 
pers, and  the  mighty  hum  of  awakening  London  was 
beginning  to  rise,  might  figure  to  ourselves  the  great 
philosopher  stepping  briskly  through  the  gate  into  his 
.  ecture-room  —  his  handsome,  serious  face,  set  "  in  his 
nood,  according  to  his  degree  in  the  university,  as  was 
thought  meet  for  more  order  and  comeliness  sake,"  and 
there,  twice  every  week  in  the  term,  deliver  the  "  sol- 
emn Physic  Lecture,"  in  the  Latin  tongue,  in  dutiful  ac- 
cordance with  the  "  agreement,  tripartite,  between  the 
mayor,  commonalty,  and  citizens  of  London  —  the  war- 
dens and  commonalty  of  the  mystery  of  mercers,  and  the 
Lecturers  in  Gresham  House  ; "  and  again,  six  hours 
later,  read  the  same  "  solemn  lecture,"  we  would  fancy 
with  more  of  relish  and  spirit,  in  the  "  English  tongue," 
"  forasmuch,"  so  the  worthy  Founder's  will  goes,  "  as 
the  greater  part  of  the  auditory  is  like  to  be  of  such  cit- 
izens and  others  as  have  small  knowledge,  or  none  at 
all,  of  the  Latin  tongue,  and  for  that  every  man,  for  his 
health's  sake,  will  desire  to  have  some  knowledge  of  the 
art  of  physic." 

"We  have  good  evidence,  from  the  general  bent  and 
spirit  of  Locke's  mind,  and  from  occasional  passages  in 
his  letters,  especially  those  to  Dr.  Molyneux,  that  he 
was  fully  aware  of  the  condition  of  medicine  at  that 
time,  and  of  the  only  way  by  which  it  could  be  im- 
proved. "Writing  to  Dr.  Molyneux,  he  says  ;  "  I  per- 
fectly agree  with  you  concerning  general  theories  —  the 
curse  of  the  time,  and  destructive  not  less  of  life  than  of 
science  —  they  are  for  the  most  part  but  a  sort  of  wak- 


54  LOCKE   AND   SYDEXHAM. 

ing  dream,  with  which,  when  men  have  warmed  theii 
heads,  they  pass  into  unquestionable  truths.  This  is  be- 
ginning at  the  wrong  end,  men  laying  the  foundation  in 
their  own 'fancies,  and  then  suiting  the  phenomena  of 
diseases,  and  the  cure  of  them,  to  these  fancies.  I  won- 
der, after  the  pattern  Dr.  Sydenham  has  set  of  a  better 
way,  men  should  return  again  to  this  romance-way  of 
physic.  But  I  see  it  is  more  easy  and  more  natural  for 
men  to  build  castles  in  the  air  of  their  own  than  to  survey 
well  those  that  are  on  the  ground.  Nicely  to  observe  the 
history  of  diseases  in  all  their  changes  and  circumstances 
is  a  work  of  time,  accurateness,  attention,  and  judgment, 
and  wherein  if  men,  through  prepossession  or  oscitancy, 
mistake,  they  may  be  convinced  of  their  error  by  unerr- 
ing nature  and  matter  of  fact.  What  we  know  of  the 
works  of  nature,  especially  in  the  constitution  of  health 
and  the  operations  of  our  own  bodies,  is  only  by  the  sen- 
sible effects,  but  not  by  any  certainty  ice  can  have,  of  the 
tools  she  uses,  or  the  ways  she  works  by." 

Exact,  patient,  honest,  "  nice  "  observation,  is  neither 
easy  nor  common  ;  as  Buffon  says  :  "  II  y  a  une  espece 
de  force  de  genie,  et  de  courage  d'esprit,  a  pouvoir  en- 
visager  sans  s'e'tonner,  la  Nature  dans  la  multitude  in- 
nombrable  de  ses  productions,  et  a  se  croire  capable  de 
les  comprendre  et  de  les  comparer  ;  il  y  a  une  espece  de 
gout,  a  les  aimer,  plus  grand  que  le  gout  qui  n'a  pour 
but,  que  des  objets  particuliers,  et  1'un  peut  dire,  que 
.  amour  et  1'etude  de  la  Nature,  suppose  dans  1'esprit 
deux  qualites  qui  paroissent  opposees,  les  grandes  vues 
d?un  genie  ardent,  qui  embrasse  tout  d'un  coup-d'ceil,  et 
les  petites  attentions  d'un  instinct  laborieux,  que  ne 
s'attache  qu'a  un  seul  point." 

Gaubius  calls  it  "  masculum  illud  observandi  studium 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  55 

veteribus  tantopere  excultum ; "  and  Dr.  Samuel  Brown, 
heu  nimium  brevis  cevi  decus  et  desiderium !  thus  en- 
forces the  same  truth  :  —  "  Few  people  are  aware  of  the 
difficulty  of  the  art  of  simple  observation  ;  to  observe 
properly  in  the  simplest  of  the  physical  sciences  requires 
a  long  and  severe  training.  No  one  knows  this  so  feel- 
ngly  as  the  great  discoverer.  Faraday  once  said  that 
Jb  always  doubts  his  own  observations.  Mitscherlich 
said  it  required  fourteen  years  to  discover  and  establish 
a  single  new  fact  in  chemistry.  An  enthusiastic  student 
one  day  betook  himself  to  Cuvier  with  a  new  muscle  he 
supposed  he  had  discovered.  The  master  bade  his 
scholar  return  to  him  with  the  same  discovery  in  six 
months  !  " 

But  we  must  draw  this  notice  of  Locke  in  his  char- 
acter of  Doctor  to  a  close.  In  the  Philosophical  Trans- 
actions for  1697,  there  is  an  account  by  him  of  an  odd 
case  of  hypertrophied  nails,  which  he  had  seen  at  La 
Charite  when  in  Paris,  and  he  gives  pictures  of  the 
hornlike  excrescences,  one  of  them  upwards  of  four 
inches  long.  The  second  Lord  Shaftesbury,  who  was 
Locke's  pupil,  and  for  whom  he  chose  a  wife,  id  a  letter 
to  Furley,  who  seems  to  have  been  suffering  from  a  re- 
lapse of  intermittent  fever,  explains,  with  great  distinct- 
ness and  good  sense,  "  Dr.  Locke's  and  all  our  ingenious 
and  able  doctors'  method  "  of  treating  this  disease  with 
the  Peruvian  bark ;  adding,  "  I  am  satisfied,  that  of  all 
medicines,  if  it  be  good  of  its  kind,  and  properly  given, 
it  is  the  most  innocent  and  effectual,  whatever  bugbear 
the  world  makes  of  it,  especially  the  tribe  of  inferior 
physicians,  from  whom  it  cuts  off  so  much  business  and 
gain."  We  now  conclude  our  notices  of  Locke's  medi- 
cal history  —  which,  however  imperfect,  seem  to  us  to 


56  LOCKE  AND   STDEXHAM. 

warrant  our  original  assertion  —  with  the  following 
weighty  sentence  taken  from  the  "  Fragment  on  Study  " 
given  hy  Lord  King,  and  which  was  written  when  Locke 
was  at  his  studies  at  Oxford.  It  accords  curiously  with 
what  we  have  already  quoted  from  Dugald  Stewart :  — 
"  Physic,  polity,  and  prudence  are  not  capable  of  dem- 
onstration, but  a  man  is  principally  helped  in  them, 
1,  By  the  history  of  matter  of  fact ;  and,  2,  By  a  sagac- 
ity of  inquiring  into  probable  causes,  and  finding  out  an 
analogy  in  their  operations  and  effects.  Whether  a  cer- 
tain course  in  public  or  private  affairs  will  succeed  well 
—  whether  rhubarb  will  purge,  or  quinquina  cure  an 
ague,  can  be  known  only  by  experience." 1 

SYDENHAM,  the  prince  of  practical  physicians,  whose 
character  is  as  beautiful  and  as  genuinely  English  as  his 
name,  did  for  his  art  what  Locke  did  for  the  philosophy 
of  mind  —  he  made  it,  in  the  main,  observational ;  he 
made  knowledge  a  means,  not  an  end.  It  would  not  be 
easy  to  over-estimate  our  obligations  as  a  nation  to  these 
two  men,  in  regard  to  all  that  is  involved  in  the  promo- 

1  The  all-accomplished,  and,  in  the  old  sense,  "the  admirable"  Dr. 
Thomas  Young,  puts  this  very  powerfully  in  the  preface  to  his  Intro- 
duction to  Medical  Literature.  "There  is,  in  fact,  no  study  more 
lifficult  than  that  of  physic  ;  it  exceeds,  as  a  science,  the  comprehen- 
sion of  the  human  mind;  and  those  who  blunder  onwards,  without  at- 
empting  to  understand  what  they  see,  are  often  nearly  on  a  level  with 
Ihose  who  depend  too  much  upon  imperfect  generalizations."  "  Some 
departments  of  knowledge  defy  all  attempts  to  subject  them  to  any 
didactic  method,  and  require  the  exercise  of  a  peculiar  address,  a  judg- 
ment, or  a  taste,  which  can  only  be  formed  by  indirect  means.  It 
appears  that  physic  is  one  of  those  departments  in  which  there  is 
frequent  necessity  for  the  exercise  of  an  incommunicable  faculty  oj 
•'udgifient,  and  a  sagacity  which  may  be  called  transcendental,  as  ex* 
tending  beyond  the  simple  combination  of  all  that  can  be  taught  b$ 
precept  " 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  57 

tion  of  health  of  body  and  soundness  of  mind.  They 
were  among  the  first  in  their  respective  regions  to  show 
their  faith  in  the  inductive  method,  by  their  works. 
They  both  professed  to  be  more  of  guides  than  critics, 
and  were  the  interpreters  and  servants  of  Nature,  not 
her  diviners  and  tormentors.  They  pointed  out  a  way, 
and  themselves  walked  in  it ;  they  taught  a  method  and 
used  it,  rather  than  announced  a  system  or  a  discovery ; 
they  collected  and  arranged  their  visa  before  settling 
their  cogitata  —  a  mean-spirited  proceeding,  doubtless, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  prevailing  dealers  in  hypotheses,  being 
in  reality  the  exact  reverse  of  their  philosophy.  How 
curious,  how  humbling,  to  think  that  it  was  not  till  this 
time,  that  men  in  search  of  truth  were  brought  to  see 
that  "  it  is  not  the  insufficiency  or  incapacity  of  man's 
mind,  but  the  remote  standing  or  placing  thereof,  that 
breedeth  mazes  and  incomprehensions ;  for  as  the  sense 
afar  off  is  full  of  mistaking,  but  is  exact  at  hand,  so  is  it 
of  the  understanding,  the  remedy  whereof  is  not  to  quicken 
or  strengthen  the  organ,  but  to  go  nearer  to  the  object." 
Well  might  this  greatest  of  Lord  Chancellors  now  even 
say,  as  he  does  in  the  context  (he  is  treating  of  medi- 
cine) —  "  Medicine  is  a  science  which  hath  been  more 
professed  than  labored,  more  labored  than  advanced, 
the  labor  being  in  my  judgment  more  in  a  circle  than 
in  progression :  I  find  much  iteration  but  small  addi 
tion  ;  "  and  he  was  right  in  laying  much  of  this  evil  con- 
dition to  the  discontinuance  of  "  the  ancient  and  serious 
diligence  of  Hippocrates."  This  serious  diligence,  this 
dK/H/3eia  or  nicety  of  observation  by  which  the  "  divine, 
old  man  of  Cos  "  achieved  so  much,  was  Sy denham's 
master-principle  in  practice  and  in  speculation.  He  pro- 
claimed it  anew,  and  displayed  in  his  own  case  its  certain 
and  inestimable  fruits. 


58  LOCKE   AND   SYDEXHAM. 

It  appears  to  us  one  of  the  most  interesting,  as  it  is 
certainly  one  of  the  most  difficult  and  neglected  depart- 
ments of  medical  literature,  to  endeavor  to  trace  the 
progress  of  medicine  as  a  practical  art,  with  its  rules 
and  instruments,  as  distinguished  from  its  consolidation 
into  a  systematic  science  with  its  doctrines  and  laws,  — 
and  to  make  out  how  far  these  two,  which  conjoined 
form  the  philosophy  of  the  subject,  have  or  have  not 
harmonized  with,  and  been  helpful  to  each  other,  at  dif- 
ferent periods  of  their  histories.  Much  might  be  done 
to  make  such  an  inquiry  instructive  and  attractive,  by 
marking  out  the  history  of  medicine  into  several  great 
epochs,  and  taking,  as  representative  of  each,  some  one 
distinguished  artsman  or  practitioner,  as  well  as  teacher 
or  discoverer.  He  might  have  Hippocrates  and  his 
epoch,  Sydenham  and  his,  John  Hunter,  Pinel.  Laennec 
and  theirs.  These  great  men  differed  certainly  widely 
enough  in  character  and  in  circumstances,  but  agreed  all 
in  this,  their  possessing  in  large  measure,  and  of  rare 
quality,  that  native  sagacity,  that  power  of  keen,  serious, 
choice,  patient,  continuous,  honest  observation,  which  is 
at  once  a  gift  and  a  habit;  that  instinct  for  seeking  and 
finding,  which  Bacon  calls  "  experientia  literala,  saga- 
citas  polius  et  odoratio  qucedam  venatica,  quam  scien- 
tia;"  that  general  strength  and  soundness  of  under- 
standing, and  that  knack  of  being  able  to  apply  their 
knowledge,  instantly  and  aright,  in  practice,  which  must 
ever  constitute  the  cardinal  virtues  of  a  great  physician, 
the  very  pith  and  marrow  of  his  worth. 

Of  the  two  first  of  these  famous  men,  we  fear  there 
survives  in  the  profession  little  more  than  the  names ; 
and  we  receive  from  them,  and  are  made  wiser  and  bet- 
ter by  inheriting,  their  treasures  of  honest  and  exquisite 


LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM.  59 

observation,  of  judicious  experience,  without,  we  fear, 
knowing  or  caring  much  from  whom  it  has  come.  "  One 
man  soweth,  and  another  reapeth."  The  young  forget 
the  old,  the  children  their  fathers  ;  and  we  are  all  too 
apt  to  reverse  the  saying  of  the  wise  king,  "  I  praised 
the  dead  that  are  already  dead,  more  than  the  living  that 
are  yet  alive." 

As  we  are  not  sufficiently  conscious  of,  so  we  assur- 
edly are  not  adequately  grateful  for,  that  accumulated 
volume  of  knowledge,  that  body  of  practical  truth,  which 
comes  down  as  a  heritage  to  each  one  of  us,  from  six 
thousand  years  of  human  endeavor ;  and  which,  like  a 
mighty  river,  is  moving  forever  onwards  —  widening, 
deepening,  strengthening,  as  it  goes  ;  for  the  right  ad- 
ministration and  use  of  whose  untold  energies  and 
wealth,  we,  to  whom  it  has  thus  far  descended,  are  re- 
sponsible to  Him  from  whom  it  comes,  and  to  whom  it 
is  hastening  —  responsible  to  an  extent  we  are  too  apt 
to  forget,  or  to  underrate.  We  should  not  content  our- 
selves with  sailing  victoriously  down  the  stream,  or  with 
considering  our  portion  of  it  merely  ;  we  should  go  up 
the  country  oftener  than  we  do,  and  see  where  the 
mighty  feeders  come  in,  and  learn  and  not  forget  their 
names,  and  note  how  much  more  of  volume,  of  momen- 
tum, and  power,  the  stream  has  after  they  have  fallen 
'n. 

It  is  the  lot  of  the  successful  medical  practitioner,  who 
is  more  occupied  with  discerning  diseases  and  curing 
them,  than  with  discoursing  about  their  essence,  and  ar- 
ranging them  into  systems,  who  observes  and  reflects  in 
order  to  act  rather  than  to  speak,  —  it  is  the  lot  of  such 
\nen  to  be  invaluable  when  alive,  and  to  be  forgotten 
soon  after  they  are  dead ;  and  this  not  altogether  or 


60  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHA5I. 

chiefly  from  any  special  ingratitude  or  injustice  on  the 
part  of  mankind,  but  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case. 
Much  that  made  such  a  man  what  the  community  to 
their  highest  profit  found  him  to  be,  dies,  must  die,  with 
him.  His  inborn  gifts,  and  much  of  what  was  most  val- 
uable in  his  experience,  were  necessarily  incommunica- 
ble to  others,  this  depending  somewhat  on  his  forgetting 
the  process  by  which,  in  particular  cases,  he  made  up 
his  mind,  and  its  minute  successive  steps,  from  his 
eagerness  to  possess  and  put  in  action  the  result,  arid 
likewise  from  his  being  confident  in  the  general  sound- 
ness of  his  method,  and  caring  little  about  formally  re- 
cording to  himself  his  transient  mental  conditions,  much 
less  announcing  them  articulately  to  others  ;  but  mainly, 
we  believe,  because  no  man  can  explain  directly  to  an- 
other man  how  he  does  any  one  practical  thing,  the  do- 
ing of  which  he  himself  has  accomplished,  not  at  once, 
or  by  imitation,  or  by  teaching,  but  by  repeated  personal 
trials,  by  missing  much,  before  ultimately  hitting. 

You  may  be  able  to  expound  excellently  to  your  son 
the  doctrines  of  gunnery,  or  read  him  a  course  of  lec- 
tures upon  the  principles  of  horsemanship,  but  you  can- 
not transfer  to  him  your  own  knack  as  a  dead-shot,  or 
make  him  keep  his  seat  over  a  rasping  fence.  He  must 
take  pains  to  win  these  for  himself,  as  you  have  done 
before  him.  Thus  it  is  that  much  of  the  best  of  a  man 
like  Sydenham,  dies  with  him. 

It  is  very  different  with  those  who  frequent  the  field 
of  scientific  discovery.  Here  matters  are  reversed.  No 
man,  for  instance,  in  teaching  anatomy  or  physiology, 
when  he  comes  to  enounce  each  new  subordinate  discov- 
ery, can  fail  to  unfold  and  to  enhance  the  ever-increas- 
ing renown  of  that  keen  UacJc-a-vised  little  man,  with  his 


LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM.  61 

piercing  eye,  "  small  and  dark,  and  so  full  of  spirit ; " 
his  compact,  broad  forehead,  his  self-contained,  peremp- 
tory air,  his  dagger  at  his  side,  and  his  fingers  playing 
with  its  hilt,  to  whom  we  owe  the  little  book,  JDe  motu 
cordis  et  sanguim's  circulatione.  This  primary,  capital 
discovery,  which  no  succeeding  one  can  ever  supersede 
or  obscure,  he  could  leave  consummate  to  mankind ;  but 
he  could  not  so  leave  the  secret  of  his  making  it ;  he 
could  not  transmit  that  combination  of  original  genius, 
invention,  exactness,  perseverance,  and  judgment,  which 
enabled  him,  and  can  alone  enable  any  man,  to  make 
such  a  permanent  addition  to  the  fund  of  scientific  truth. 
But  what  fitted  Harvey  for  that  which  he  achieved, 
greatly  unfitted  him  for  such  excellence  in  practice  as 
Sydenham  attained.  He  belonged  to  the  science  more 
than  to  the  art.  His  friend  Aubrey  says  of  him,  that 
"  though  all  his  profession  would  allow  him  to  be  an  ex- 
cellent anatomist,  I  have  never  heard  of  any  who  ad- 
mired his  therapeutic  way."  A  mind  of  his  substance 
and  mettle,  speculative  and  arbitrary,  passing  rapidly 
and  passionately  from  the  particular  to  the  general,  from 
multiformity  to  unity,  with,  moreover,  a  fiery  temper 
and  an  extemporaneous  dagger  as  its  sting,  was  not 
likely  to  take  kindly  to  the  details  of  practice,  or  make 
a  very  useful  or  desirable  family  doctor.  Sydenham, 
again,  though  his  works  everywhere  manifest  that  he 
was  gifted  with  ample  capacity  and  keen  relish  for  ab- 
stract truth,  moved  habitually  and  by  preference  in  the 
lower,  but  at  the  time  the  usefuller  sphere  of  every- day 
practice,  speculating  chiefly  in  order  to  act,  reducing  his 
generalizations  back  to  particulars,  so  as  to  answer  some 
immediate  instance,  —  the  result  of  which  was  the  sig- 
vallest  success  of  "  his  therapeutic  way."  We  have  had 


32  LOCKE   AND   SYDEXHAM. 

in  our  own  day  two  similar  examples  of  the  man  of  sci- 
ence and  the  man  of  art ;  the  one,  Sir  Charles  Bell  — • 
like  Harvey,  the  explorer,  the  discoverer,  the  man  of 
genius  and  science,  of  principles  and  laws,  having  the 
royal  gifts  of  invention  and  eloquence  —  was  not  equally 
endowed  with  those  homelier,  but  in  their  degree  not 
less  rare  qualities,  which  made  Dr.  Abercrombie,  our 
Scottish  Sydenham,  what  he  was,  as  a  master  in  the  di- 
agnosis and  treatment  of  disease.  The  one  pursued  his 
profession  as  a  science,  to  be  taught,  to  be  transmitted 
in  its  entireness  —  the  other  as  an  art  to  be  applied. 
The  one  was,  in  the  old  phrase,  luciferons  ;  the  other 
frugiferous. 

One  great  object  we  have  in  now  bringing  forward 
the  works  and  character  of  Sydenham,  is  to  enforce  the 
primary  necessity,  especially  in  our  day,  of  attending  to 
medicine  as  the  art  of  healing,  not  less  than  as  the 
science  of  diseases  and  drugs.  We  want  at  present  more  _ 
of  the  first  than  of  the  second.  Our  age  is  becoming 
every  day  more  purely  scientific,  and  is  occupied  far 
more  with  arranging  subjects  and  giving  names,  and  re- 
membering them,  than  with  understanding  and  manag- 
ing objects.  There  is  often  more  knowledge  of  words 
than  of  things. 

"We  have  already  stated  our  notion,  that  to  the  great 
body  of  modern  physicians,  Sydenham  is  little  more  than 
a  name,  and  that  his  works,  still  more  than  those  of  his 
companion  Locke,  are  more  spoken  of  than  read.  Thi 
is  owing  to  several  causes  :  partly  to  their  being  buried 
in  Latin,  which  men  seem  nowadays  ashamed  to  know; 
partly  to  much  in  them  being  now  scientifically  obsolete 
and  useless ;  partly  from  their  practical  value  being  im- 
paired by  our  ignorance  of  his  formulas  of  cure ;  and 


LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM.  63 

greatly  also,  we  fear,  from  what  Baglivi  calls  "  an  inept 
derision  and  neglect  of  the  ancients,"  which  is  more  prev- 
alent than  seemly.  We  include  ourselves  among  these ; 
for  until  we  got  Dr.  GreenhilPs  edition,  we  had  never 
read  seriously  and  thoroughly  these  admirable  tracts, 
which  were  all  of  an  occasional  character,  and  were 
forced  from  their  author  by  the  importunity  of  friends, 
or  the  envious  calumny  of  enemies,  often  in  the  form  of 
familiar  letters. 

We  had,  when  at  college,  picked  up  like  our  neigh- 
bors the  current  commonplaces  about  Sydenham ;  such 
as  that  he  went  by  the  name  of  "  the  Prince  of  English 
physicians  ; "  that  Boerhaave  (of  whom  by  the  way  we 
knew  quite  as  little,  unless  it  were  a  certain  awful  ac- 
quaintance with  his  ugly,  squab,  and  gilded  visage,  which 
regarded  us  grimly  from  above  a  druggist's  door,  as  we 
hurried  along  the  Bridges  to  the  University)  was  wont 
to  take  his  hat  off,  whenever  he  mentioned  his  name, 
and  to  call  him  "  Anglice  lumen,  Artis  Phoebum,  veram 
Hippocratici  veri  speciem : "  that  his  life  was  written  by 
Samuel  Johnson  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  and  was 
one  of  his  earliest  and  worst  paid  performances :  that  he 
was  a  Whig,  and  went  into  the  field  as  a  Parliament 
man.  Moreover,  that  when  asked  by  Sir  Richard  Black- 
more  what  he  would  advise  him  for  medical  reading,  he 
replied,  "  Head  Don  Quixote,  Sir,"  —  an  answer  as  full 
of  sense  as  wit,  and  the  fitness  and  wisdom  of  which  it 
would  be  not  less  pleasant  than  profitable  to  unfold  at 
length.  We  had  been  told  also,  in  a  very  general  way 
by  our  teachers,  that  Sydenham  had  done  some  things 
for  his  profession,  which,  considering  the  dark  age  in 
which  he  worked,  were  highly  to  his  credit ;  that  his 
name  was  well  connected  with  the  history  and  manage- 


64  LOCKE  AND   SYDEXHAM. 

ment  of  the  small-pox ;  the  nature  of  epidemics,  the  con- 
stitutions of  years,  dropsies,  etc.,  and  that  he  had  re- 
corded his  own  sufferings  from  the  gout  in  a  clever  and 
entertaining  way. 

All  this  was  true,  hut  by  no  means  the  whole  truth. 
Not  only  are  his  observations  invaluable  to  anyone  en- 
gaged in  tracing  the  history  of  medicine  as  a  practical 
art,  and  as  an  applied  science ;  in  marking  in  what  re- 
spects it  is  changed,  and  in  what  unchanged ;  in  how 
much  it  is  better  now  than  then,  and  in  what  little  it  is 
not  so  good.  In  addition  to  all  this,  they  are  full  of  val- 
uable rules  for  the  diagnosis  and  treatment  of  disease ; 
and  we  can  trace  to  him  as  their  origin,  many  of  our 
most  common  and  important  therapeutic  doctrines.  They 
everywhere  manifest  how  thoroughly  he  practised  what 
he  taught,  how  honestly  he  used  his  own  "method," 
that  of  continued,  close,  serious  observation.  But  we 
confess,  after  all,  our  chief  delight  is  from  the  discovery 
he  makes  in  his  works  of  his  personal  character  —  the 
exemplar  he  furnishes  in  himself  of  the  four  qualities 
Hippocrates  says  are  indispensable  in  every  good  physi- 
cian —  learning,  sagacity,  humanity,  probity.  This  per- 
sonality gives  a  constant  charm  to  everything  he  writes, 
the  warmth  of  his  large,  humane,  practical  nature  is  felt 
throughout. 

Above  all,  we  meet  with  a  habitual  reference  to  what 
ought  to  be  the  supreme  end  of  every  man's  thoughts 
and  energies  —  the  two  main  issues  of  all  his  endeavors, 
—  the  glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  men.  Human  life 
was  to  him  a  sacred,  a  divine,  as  well  as  a  curious  thing, 
and  he  seems  to  have  possessed  through  life,  in  rare 
acuteness,  that  sense  of  the  value  of  what  was  at  stake 
of  the  perilous  material  he  had  to  work  in,  and 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  6& 

gentleness  and  compassion  for  his  suffering  fellow-men, 
without  which  no  man — be  his  intellect  ever  so  tran 
scenclent,  his  learning  ever  so  vast,  his  industry  ever  so 
accurate  and  inappeasable  —  need  hope  to  be  a  great 
physician,  much  less  a  virtuous  and  honest  man.  This 
characteristic  is  very  striking.  In  the  midst  of  the  most 
minute  details,  and  the  most  purely  professional  state- 
ments, he  bursts  out  into  some  abrupt  acknowledgment 
of  "The  Supreme  Judge,"  "The  true  Archiater  and 
Archeus."  We  may  give  one  among  many  such  in- 
stances. He  closes  his  observations  on  The  Epidemic 
Cough  and  Pleurisy  Peripneumony  of  1675,  with  this 
sudden  allusion  to  the  Supreme  Being  :  "  Qui  post  se- 
quentur  morbi,  solus  novit,  Qui  novit  omnia.  And 
again,  after  giving  his  receipt  for  the  preparation  of  his 
laudanum  liquidum,  so  much  of  Spanish  wine,  of  opium, 
of  saffron,  of  cinnamon,  and  cloves,  he  adds,  "  Profecto 
non  hie  mihi  tempero,  quin  gratulabundus  animadver 
tarn,  DEUM  omnipotentern  TTCIVTUV  ^.(orijpa  fdwv  non  aliud 
remedium,  quod  vel  pluribus  malis  debellandis  par  sit, 
vel  eadem  efficacius  extirpet,  humano  generi  in  miseria- 
rum  solatium  concessisse,  quam  opiata." 

If  we  may  adapt  the  simple  but  sublime  saying  of  Sir 
Isaac  Newton,  Sydenham,  though  diligent  beyond  most 
other  "  children  "  in  gathering  his  pebbles  and  shells  on 
the  shore  of  the  great  deep,  and  in  winning  for  mankind 
some  things  of  worth  from  the  vast  and  formless  infinite, 
was  not  unconscious  of  the  mighty  presence  beside  which 
he  was  at  work ;  he  was  not  deaf  to  the  strong  music  of 
that  illimitable  sea.  He  recognized  in  the  midst  of  the 
known,  a  greater,  an  infinite,  a  divine  unknown ;  behind 
everything  certain  and  distinct,  he  beheld  something 
shadowy  and  unsearchable,  past  all  fiudiqg  out ;  and  ho 
5 


66  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

did  not,  as  many  men  of  his  class  have  too  often  done, 
and  still  do,  rest  in  the  mere  contemplation  and  recogni- 
tion of  the  rt  0€tov.  This  was  to  him  but  the  shadow  of 
the  supreme  substance,  6  ©eos.  How  unlike  to  this  fer- 
vor, this  reverence  and  godly  fear,  is  the  hard,  cool,  non- 
chalant style  of  many  of  our  modern  men  of  science, 
each  of  whom  is  so  intent  on  his  own  little  pebble,  so 
bent  upon  finding  in  it  something  no  one  else  ever  found, 
so  self-involved  and  self-sufficient,  that  his  eyes  and  his 
ears  are  alike  shut  to  the  splendors  and  the  voices  — 
the  brooding  darkness,  and  the  "  look  that  threatens  the 
profane  "  —  of  the  liberal  sea,  from  out  whose  abyss  it 
has  been  flung,  and 

"  Which  doth  with  its  eternal  motion  make 
A  sound  like  thunder  —  everlastingly." 

This  habit  of  Sydenham's  mind  is  strikingly  shown  in 
the  first  sentence  of  his  Preface  to  the  first  edition  of 
his  Medical  Observations:  "  Qui  medicinae  dat  operam, 
haac  secum  ut  ssepe  perpendat  oportet :  Primo,  se  de 
segrorum  vita  ipsius  curse  commissa,  rationem  aliquaudo 
SUPREMO  JUDICI  redditurum.  Deinde  quicquid  artis 
aut  scientiag  Divino  beneficio  consecutus  est,  imprimis, 
ad  SUMMI  NUMINIS  laudem,  atque  humani  generis  salu- 
tem,  esse  dirigendum :  indignum  autem  esse,  ut  crelestia 
ilia  dona,  vel  avaritia?,  vel  ambitus  officio  inserviant. 
Porro,  se  non  ignobilis  alicujus  aut  contemnendi  anima- 
lis  curam  suscepisse ;  ut  enirn,  humaui  generis  pretiurn 
agnoscas,  UNIGENITCS  DEI  FILIUS,  homo  factus  est 
adeoque  naturam  assumptam  sua  dignatione  nobilitavit. 
Denique,  nee  se  communi  sorte,  exemptum  esse,  sed 
iisdem  legibus  mortalitatis,  iisdem  casibus  et  osrumuis, 
obnoxium  atque  expositum,  quibus  alii  quilibet ;  quo 
diligentius  et  quidem  teneriori  cum  afFectu,  ipse  plane 
6/xoto7ra0v;s  aegrotantibus  opem  ferre  conetur." 


LOCKE  AND   STDENHAM.  67 

When  it  is  the  free  outcome  of  an  earnest,  sincere,  and 
ample  nature,  this  sadden  reference  to  Divine  things  — 
this  involuntary  Oh  altitudo!  —  in  the  midst  of  a  purely 
technical  exposition,  has  an  effect,  and  moves  the  hearer 
far  beyond  any  mere  elaborate  and  foreseen  argumenta- 
tion. When  a  youth  is  told  beforehand  what  you  mean 
to  make  him  believe,  and,  above  all,  what  you  mean  to 
insist  that  he  must  feel — you  have  much  of  him  against 
you.  You  should  take  him  before  he  is  aware;  and, 
besides,  if  this  burst  of  emotion  is  the  expression  of  an 
inward  restraint,  carried  to  its  utmost,  and  then  forced 
into  utterance ;  if  the  speaker  has  resisted  being  moved, 
and  is  moved  in  spite  of  himself,  then  is  he  surest  to 
move  those  upon  whom  he  is  acting.  The  full  power  of 
lightning  is  due  to  speed  and  concentration  —  you  have 
it  in  the  Teutonic  Blitz,  gone  as  soon  as  come. 

Such  of  our  readers  (a  fast-lessening  band !)  as  were 
pupils  of  that  remarkable  man  and  first-rate  teacher,  Dr. 
John  Barclay,  —  must  remember  well  his  sudden  bursts 
of  this  kind,  made  all  the  more  memorable,  that  he 
disliked  formal  moralizing  upon  his  favorite  science. 
There  was  one  occasion  when  he  never  failed  to  break 
out.  It  was  when  concluding  his  description  of  the 
bones  of  the  skull.  His  old  pupils  knew  what  was  com- 
ing, the  new  ones  were  set  a  wondering ;  all  saw  some 
suppressed  emotion  working  within  him, — his  language 
was  more  close  and  rapid ;  that  homely,  sensible,  honest 
face,  was  eager  with  some  unacknowledged  central  feel 
ing,  and  after  finishing  the  Sella  Turcica,  and  the  clinoid 
processes,  he  threw  down  the  sphenoid  bone,  and  the 
time  being  up,  and  his  hand  on  the  open  door  of  that 
well-known  arena  in  which  he  moved,  he  seemed  as  if 
leaving ;  indeed,  we  believe  he  intended  then  to  leave. 


68  LOCKE  AND  SYDENHAM. 

when  turning  round  upon  the  class,  with  a  face  serious 
almost  to  anger,  and  a  voice  trembling  with  feeling,  he 
said,  "Yes,  gentlemen!  there  is  a  God,  omnipotent, 
omniscient,  and  eternal"  as  he  vanished  under  the  gal- 
lery into  his  room.  Depend  upon  it,  this  single  sentence 
made  a  deeper  impression  on  his  hearers  than  any  more 
elaborate  demonstration  after  the  manner  of  Paley.  The 
ardent  old  man  did  not  linger  among  particulars,  but 
passed  at  once,  and  with  a  sort  of  passionate  fervor,  to 
the  full  absolute  assertion. 

Two  examples  of  these  brief  lightnings,  which  at  one 
flash  "  unfold  both  earth  and  heaven,"  occur  to  us  now. 
Dr.  Dick,  in  his  System  of  Theology,  at  the  close  of  his 
lecture  on  the  Immensity  and  Omnipresence  of  the  De- 
ity, pictures  a  man  about  to  commit  some  great  sin,  as 
shutting  himself  in  his  room,  or  going  into  the  depths  of 
an  unfrequented \wood,  so  as  to  get  absolutely  by  him- 
self, and  then  turning  and  looking  and  looking  again  to 
make  sure —  "  let  him  turn  and  look  again  !  " 

And  John  Foster,  in  that  intense  bit  of  spiritual  vivi- 
section, the  Preface  to  Doddridgc's  Rise  and  Progress, 
when  minuting  the  process  of  a  step-by-step  descent  into 
the  deepest  meditative  wickedness  and  impiety,  the  very 
"  superfluity  of  naughtiness,"  represents  the  person  as 
speaking  his  last  thought  aloud,  and  starting  at  his  own 
voice,  and  his  desperate  sin,  and  then  exclaiming,  "If 
anyone  were  within  hearing !  "  If  anyone  were  ivithin 
hearing!  —  as  if  some  One  had  not  all  the  while  been 
within  hearing. 

The  following  are  a  few  quotations,  taken  at  random, 
from  Sydenham's  various  treatises  and  letters,  in  which 
we  may  see  what  he  himself  was  as  a  practitioner,  and 
what  were  his  views  as  to  the  only  way  in  which  Medi 
cine,  as  an  art,  could  be  advanced. 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  69 

In  his  Epistle  to  Dr.  Mapletoft,  prefixed  to  the  Ob- 
servationes  Medicce,  his  first  publication,  when  he  was 
forty-two  years  of  age,  he  gives  his  friend  a  long  and 
entertaining  account  of  his  early  professional  life,  and 
thus  proceeds :  "  Having  returned  to  London,  I  began 
the  practice  of  Medicine,  which  when  I  studied  curiously 
with  most  intent  eye  (intenio  admodum  oculo)  and  ut- 
most diligence,  I  carce  to  this  conviction,  which  to  this 
day  increases  in  strength,  that  our  art  is  not  to  be  better 
learned  than  by  its  exercise  and  use ;  and  that  it  is 
likely  in  every  case  to  prove  true,  that  those  who  have 
directed  their  eyes  and  their  mind,  the  most  accurately 
and  diligently,  to  the  natural  phenomena  of  diseases,  will 
excel  in  eliciting  and  applying  the  true  indications  of 
cure.  With  this  thread  as  my  guide,  I  first  applied  my 
mind  to  a  closer  observation  of  fevers,  and  after  no  small 
amount  of  irksome  waiting,  and  perplexing  mental  agi- 
tations, which  I  had  to  endure  for  several  years,  I  at 
last  fell  upon  a  method  by  which,  as  I  thought,  they 
might  be  cured,  which  method  I  some  time  ago  made 
public,  at  the  urgent  request  of  my  friends." 

He  then  refers  to  the  persecution  and  calumnies  he 
had  been  exposed  to  from  the  profession,  who  looked 
upon  him  as  a  pestilent  fellow,  and  a  setter  forth  of 
strange  doctrines ;  adopting  the  noble  saying  of  Titus 
Tacitus  in  reply  to  Metellus  :  "  Facile  est  in  me  dicere, 
cum  non  sim  respousurus ;  tu  didicisti  maledicere ;  ego, 
conscientia  teste,  didici  maledicta  coutemnere.  Si  tu 
lingua)  tuae  dominus  es,  et  quicquid  lubet  effutias ;  ego 
aurium  mearum  sum  dominus,  ut  quicquid  obvenerit 
audiant  inoffensae." * —  It  is  easy  to  speak  against  me 

1  Sydenham  here  quotes  from  memory,  as  Bacon,  and  many  other 
men  of  that  time,  whose  minds  were  full  of  the  classics,  often  did,  and 


70  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

when  I  make  no  reply  ;  you  have  learned  to  speak  -evil ; 
I,  my  conscience  bearing  me  witness,  have  learned  to 
despise  evil  speaking.  You  are  master  of  your  tongue, 
and  can  make  it  utter  what  you  list ;  I  am  master  of  my 
ears,  and  can  make  them  hear  without  being  offended. 

And,  after  making  the  reference  we  have  already 
mentioned,  to  his  method  having  had  the  sanction  and 
assistance  of  Locke,  he  thus  concludes  in  regard  to  the 
ultimate  success  of  his  newly  discovered  way,  —  "As 
concerns  the  future,  I  cast  the  die,  not  overcareful  how 
it  may  fall,  for,  since  I  am  now  no  longer  young,  and 
have,  by  the  blessing  of  the  Almighty,  a  sufficient  pro- 
vision for  the  remainder  of  my  journey  (tuntum  mild  est 
viatici,  quantum  restat  vice),  I  will  do  my  best  to  attain, 
without  trouble  to  myself  or  others,  that  measure  of 
happiness  so  beautifully  depicted  by  Politian  :  — 

'Felix  ille  animi,  dh'isque  simillimus  ipsis, 
Quern  non  mendaci  resplendens  gloria  fuco 
Sollicitat,  non  fastosi  mala  gaudia  luxus. 
Sed  tacitos  sinit  ire  dies,  etpaupere  cultu 
Exiyit  innocuce  tranguilla  silentia  vitce.'  " 

We  shall  now  give  more  fully  his  peculiar  views,  and 
in  order  to  render  him  due  honor  for  originating  and 
acting  upon  them,  we  must  remember  in  the  midst  of 
what  a  mass  of  errors  and  prejudices,  of  theories  actively 
mischievous,  he  was  placed,  at  a  time  when  the  mania  of 
hypothesis  was  at  its  height,  and  when  the  practical  part 
of  his  art  was  overrun  and  stultified  by  vile  and  silly 

none  of  the  commentators  have  discovered  the  exact  passage.  The 
remark  is  in  Beyerlinck,  Magn.  Theatr.  Vit.  Human.,  torn.  vi.  page 
60,  H.  (Lugd.  1GG6,  folio),  referred  to  by  Dr.  Greenhill.  It  is  as  fol- 
lows :  "Tacitus  Lucio  Metello  ei  in  Senatu  maledicenti  respondit, 
'Facile  est  in  me  dicere,  quia  non  responsurus  sum,  potentia  ergo  tua 
non  mea  patieutia  est  accusanda.'  "  Seneca  is  referred  to  by  Beyer 
linck. 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  71 

nostrums.  We  must  have  all  this  in  our  mind,  or  we 
shall  fail  in  estimating  the  amount  of  independent 
thought,  of  courage  and  uprightness,  and  of  all  that  de- 
serves to  be  called  magnanimity  and  virtue,  which  was 
involved  in  his  thinking  and  writing  and  acting  as  he 
did. 

"  The  improvement  of  physic,  in  my  opinion,  depends, 
1st,  Upon  collecting  as  genuine  and  natural  a  description 
or  history  of  diseases  as  can  be  procured ;  and,  2d,  Upon 
laying  down  a  fixed  and  complete  method  of  cure.  With 
regard  to  the  history  of  diseases,  whoever  considers  the 
undertaking  deliberately  will  perceive  that  a  few  such 
particulars  must  be  attended  to  :  1st,  All  diseases  should 
be  described  as  objects  of  natural  history,  with  the  same 
exactness  as  is  done  by  botanists,  for  there  are  many 
diseases  that  come  under  the  same  genus  and  bear  the 
same  name,  that,  being  specifically  different,  require  a 
different  treatment.  The  word  carduus  or  thistle,  is  ap- 
plied to  several  herbs,  and  yet  a  botanist  would  be  inac- 
curate and  imperfect  who  would  content  himself  with  a 
generic  description.  Furthermore,  when  this  distribu- 
tion of  distempers  into  genera  has  been  attempted,  it  has 
been  to  fit  into  some  hypothesis,  and  hence  this  distri- 
bution is  made  to  suit  the  bent  of  the  author  rather  than 
the  real  nature  of  the  disorder.  How  much  this  has  ob- 
structed the  improvement  of  physic  any  man  may  know. 
In  writing,  therefore,  such  a  natural  history  of  diseases, 
every  merely  philosophical  hypothesis  should  be  set 
aside,  and  the  manifest  and  natural  phenomena,  how- 
ever minute,  should  be  noted  with  the  utmost  exactness. 
The  usefulness  of  this  procedure  cannot  be  easily  over- 
rated, as  compared  with  the  subtle  inquiries  and  trifling 
notions  of  modern  writers ;  for  can  there  be  a  shorter,  or 


72  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

indeed  any  other  way,  of  coming  at  the  morbific  causes, 
or  of  discovering  the  curative  indications,  than  by  a  cer- 
tain perception  of  the  peculiar  symptoms  ?  By  these 
steps  and  helps  it  was  that  the  father  of  physic,  the 
great  Hippocrates,  came  to  excel;  his  theory  (Oempia)  be- 
ing no  more  than  an  exact  description  or  view  of  Nature. 
He  found  that  Nature  alone  often  terminates  diseases, 
and  works  a  cure  with  a  few  simple  medicines,  and  often 
enough  with  no  medicines  at  all.  If  only  one  person 
in  every  age  had  accurately  described,  and  consistently 
cured,  but  a  single  disease,  and  made  known  his  secret, 
physic  would  not  be  where  it  now  is ;  but  we  have  long 
since  forsook  the  ancient  method  of  cure,  founded  upon 
the  knowledge  of  conjunct  causes,  insomuch  that  the  art, 
as  at  this  day  practised,  is  rather  the  art  of  talking 
about  diseases  than  of  curing  them.  I  make  this  digres- 
sion in  order  to  assert,  that  the  discovering  and  assigning 
of  remote  cau  s,  which  nowadays  so  much  engrosses 
the  minds  and  feeds  the  vanity  of  curious  inquirers,  is 
an  impossible  attempt,  and  that  only  immediate  and 
conjunct  causes  fall  within  the  compass  of  our  knowl- 
edge." Or  as  he  elsewhere  pithily  states  it :  —  "  Cogni- 
tio  nostra,  in  rerum  cortice,  omnis  ferme  versatur,  ac  ad 
TO  on  sive  "quod  res  hoc  modo  se  habeat,  fere  tan  turn 
assurgit ;  TO  SIOTI,  sive  rerum  causas,  nullatenus  attingit." 
His  friend  Locke  could  not  have  stated  the  case  more 
clearly  or  sensibly.  It  is  this  doctrine  of  "conjunct 
causes,"  this  necessity  for  watching  the  action  of  com- 
pound and  often  opposing  forces,  and  the  having  to  do 
all  this  not  in  a  machine,  of  which  if  you  have  seen  one, 
you  have  seen  all,  but  where  each  organism  has  often 
much  that  is  different  from,  as  well  as  common  with  all 
others.  Here  you  must  mend  your  watch  while  it  is  go- 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  73 

ing,  you  must  shoot  your  game  on  the  wing.  It  is  this 
which  takes  medicine  out  of  the  category  of  exact  sci- 
ences, and  puts  it  into  that  which  includes  politics,  ethics, 
navigation,  and  practical  engineering,  in  all  of  which, 
though  there  are  principles,  and  those  principles  quite 
within  the  scope  of  human  reason,  yet  the  application  of 
these  principles  must,  in  the  main,  be  left  to  each  man's 
skill,  presence  of  mind,  and  judgment,  as  to  the  case  in 
hand. 

It  is  in  medicine  as  in  the  piloting  of  a  ship  —  rules 
may  be  laid  down,  principles  expounded,  charts  exhib- 
ited ;  but  when  a  man  has  made  himself  master  of  all 
these,  he  will  often  find  his  ship  among  breakers  and 
quicksands,  and  must  at  last  have  recourse  to  his  own 
craft  and  courage.  Gaubius,  in  his  admirable  chapter, 
De  disciplina  Medici,  thus  speaks  of  the  reasonable  cer- 
tainty of  medicine  as  distinguished  from  the  absolute 
certainty  of  the  exact  sciences,  and  at  the  same  time 
gives  a  very  just  idea  of  the  infinite  (as  far  as  concerns 
our  limited  powers  of  sense  and  judgment)  multiplicity 
of  the  phenomena  of  disease  :  —  "  Nee  vero  sufficit  med- 
icum  communia  modo  intueri ;  oportet  et  cuivis  homini 
propria,  quae  quidem  diversitas  tarn  immensa  occurrit  ut 
nulla  observatiouum  vi  exhauriri  possit.  Sola,  denique 
contemplutione  non  licet  acquiescere,  inque  obscuris 
rebus  suspendere  judicium,  donee  lux  affulgeat.  Actio- 
nem  exigit  officium.  Caplanda  hinc  agendi  occasio,  qua 
scepe  prceceps,  per  conjectiiram  cogit  determinare,  quod 
per  scienliam  sat  cito  nequit.  Audiant  hasc  obtrectato- 
res,  et  cum  didicerint  scienlias  puras,  ab  iis  quas  ap- 
plicatas  vocaut,  contemplativas  a  practicis,  distinguere, 
videant  quo  jure  medicinam  pro)  aliis,  ut  omnis  certi  ex- 
pertem,  infament." 


74  LOCKE   AND   SYDEXHAM. 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  put  more  important  truth  into 
clearer  expression.  Conjecture,  in  its  good  sense,  as 
meaning  the  throwing  together  of  a  number  of  the  ele- 
ments of  judgment,  and  taking  what  upon  the  whole  is 
the  most  likely,  and  acting  accordingly,  has,  and  will 
ever  have,  a  main  part  to  play  in  any  art  that  concerns 
human  nature,  in  its  entireness  and  in  action.  AYhen  in 
obscure  and  dangerous  places,  we  must  not  contemplate, 
we  must  act,  it  may  be  on  the  instant.  This  is  what 
makes  medicine  so  much  more  of  an  art  than  a  science, 
and  dependent  so  much  more  upon  the  agent  than  upon 
his  instructions ;  and  this  it  is  that  makes  us  so  earnest 
in  our  cautions  against  the  supposition  that  any  amount 
of  scientific  truth,  the  most  accurate  and  extensive,  can 
in  mediciJe  supersede  the  necessity  of  the  recipient  of  all 
this  knowledge  having,  as  Richard  Baxter  says,  by  nat- 
ure "  a  special  sagacity,  —  a  naturally  searching  and 
conjecturing  turn  of  mind."  Moreover,  this  faculty  must 
be  disciplined  and  exercised  in  its  proper  function,  by 
being  not  a  hearer  only,  but  also  a  doer,  an  apprentice 
ss  well  as  a  student,  and  by  being  put  under  the  tutor- 
age of  a  master  who  exercises  as  well  as  expounds  his 
calling. 

This  native  gift  and  its  appropriate  object  have  been 
so  justly,  so  beautifully  described  by  Hartley  Coleridge 
in  his  Life  of  Fothergill,  that  we  cannot  refrain  from 
closing  our  remarks  on  this  subject  by  quoting  his  words. 
Do  our  readers  know  his  Biographia  Borealis  ?  If  they 
do,  they  will  agree  with  us  in  placing  it  among  the  pleas- 
antest  books  in  our  language,  just  such  a  one  as  Plu- 
tarch, had  he  been  an  Englishman,  would  have  written : 
—  "  There  are  certain  inward  gifts,  more  akin  to  geniu? 
than  to  talent,  which  make  the  physician  prosper,  and 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  75 

deserve  to  prosper;  for  medicine  is  not  like  practical 
geometry,  or  the  doctrine  of  projectiles,  an  application 
of  an  abstract,  demonstrable  science,  in  which  a  certain 
result  may  be  infallibly  drawn  from  certain  data,  or  in 
which  the  disturbing  forces  may  be  calculated  with  sci- 
entific exactness.  It  is  a  tentative  art,  to  succeed  in 
which  demands  a  quickness  of  eye,  thought,  tact,  inven 
tion,  which  are  not  to  be  learned  by  study,  nor,  unless 
by  connatural  aptitude,  to  be  acquired  by  experience ; 
and  it  is  the  possession  of  this  sense,  exercised  by  a  pa- 
tient observation,  and  fortified  by  a  just  reliance  on  the 
vis  medicatrix,  the  self-adjusting  tendency  of  nature, 
that  constitutes  the  true  physician  or  healer,  as  imagina- 
tion constitutes  the  poet,  and  brings  it  to  pass,  that  some- 
times an  old  apothecary,  not  far  removed  from  an  old 
woman,  and  whose  ordinary  conversation  savors,  it  may 
be,  largely  of  twaddle,  who  can  seldom  give  a  rational 
account  of  a  case  or  its  treatment,  acquires,  and  justly, 
a  reputation  for  infallibility,  while  men  of  talent  and 
erudition  are  admired  and  neglected  ;  the  truth  being,  that 
there  is  a  great  deal  that  is  mysterious  in  whatever  is 
practical." 

But  to  return  to  our  author.  He  was  the  first  to  point 
out  what  he  called  the  varying  "  constitutions  "  of  differ- 
ent years  in  relation  to  their  respective  epidemics,  and 
the  importance  of  watching  the  type  of  each  new  epi- 
demic before  settling  the  means  of  cure.  In  none  of 
his  works  is  his  philosophic  spirit,  and  the  subtlety  and 
clearness  of  his  understanding,  shown  more  signally  than 
in  his  successive  histories  of  the  epidemics  of  his  time. 
Nothing  equal  to  them  has  ever  appeared  since;  and  the. 
full  importance  of  the  principles  he  was  the  first  to  lay 
iown,  is  only  now  beginning  to  be  acknowledged.  His 


I 

76  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

confession  as  to  his  entirely  failing  to  discover  what  made 
one  epidemic  so  to  differ  from  another,  has  been  amply 
confirmed  by  all  succeeding  observers.  He  says,  —  "I 
have  carefully  examined  the  different  constitutions  of 
different  years  as  to  the  manifest  qualities  of  the  air, 
yet  I  must  own  I  have  hitherto  made  no  progress,  hav 
ing  found  that  years,  perfectly  agreeing  as  to  their  tem- 
perature and  other  sensible  properties,  have  produced 
very  different  tribes  of  diseases,  and  vice  versa.  The 
matter  seems  to  stand  thus :  there  are  certain  constitu- 
tions of  years  that  owe  their  origin  neither  to  heat,  cold, 
dryness,  nor  moisture,  but  upon  a  certain  secret  and  in- 
explicable alteration  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  whence 
the  air  becomes  impregnated  with  such  kinds  of  effluvia, 
as  subject  the  human  body  to  distempers  of  a  certain 
specific  type." 

As  to  the  early  treatment  of  a  new  epidemic,  he  says, 
—  "  My  chief  care,  in  the  midst  of  so  much  darkness  and 
ignorance,  is  to  wait  a  little,  and  proceed  very  slowly, 
especially  in  the  use  of  powerful  remedies,  in  the  mean- 
time observing  its  nature  and  procedure,  and  by  what 
means  the  patient  was  relieved  or  injured ; "  and  he  con- 
cludes by  regretting  the  imperfection  of  his  observations, 
ind  hoping  that  they  will  assist  in  beginning  a  work 
that,  in  his  judgment,  will  greatly  tend  to  the  advantage 
of  mankind.  Had  his  successors  followed  in  his  track 
with  equal  sagacity  and  circumspection,  our  knowledge 
of  these  destructive  and  mysterious  incursions  of  disease 
would,  in  all  likelihood,  have  been  greatly  larger  and 
more  practical  than  it  is  now. 

Sydenham  is  well  known  to  have  effected  a  revolution 
in  the  management  of  the  small-pox,  and  to  have  intro- 
duced a  method  of  treatment  upon,  which  no  material 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  77 

improvement  has  since  been  made.  We  owe  the  cool 
regimen  to  him.  Speaking  of  the  propriety  of  attend- 
ing to  the  wishes  of  the  sufferer,  he  says,  with  equal 
humanity  and  good  sense,  —  "A  person  in  a  burning 
fever  desires  to  drink  freely  of  some  small  liquor ;  but 
the  rules  of  art,  built  upon  some  hypothesis,  having  a 
different  design  in  view,  thwart  the  desire,  and  instead 
thereof,  order  a  cordial.  In  the  mean  time  the  patient, 
not  being  suffered  to  drink  what  he  wishes,  nauseates  all 
kinds  of  food,  but  art  commands  him  to  eat.  Another, 
after  a  long  illness,  begs  hard,  it  may  be,  for  some- 
thing odd,  or  questionable ;  here,  again,  impertinent  art 
thwarts  him  and  threatens  him  with  death.  How  much 
more  excellent  the  aphorism  of  Hippocrates  —  'Such 
food  as  is  most  grateful,  though  not  so  wholesome,  is  to 
be  preferred  to  that  which  is  better,  but  distasteful.' 
Nor  will  this  appear  strange,  if  it  be  considered  that  the 
all-wise  Creator  has  formed  the  whole  with  such  exqui- 
site order,  that,  as  all  the  evils  of  nature  eminently  con- 
spire to  complete  the  harmony  of  the  whole  work,  so 
every  being  is  endowed  with  a  Divine  direction  or  in- 
stinct, which  is  interwoven  with  its  proper  essence,  and 
hence  the  safety  of  mankind  was  provided  for,  who,  not- 
withstanding all  our  doctoring,  had  been  otherwise  in  a 
sad  enough  plight."  Again  —  "  He  would  be  no  honest 
.ind  successful  pilot  who  were  to  apply  himself  with  less 
industry  to  avoid  rocks  and  sands,  and  bring  his  vessel 
safely  home,  than  to  search  into  the  causes  of  the  ebbing 
and  the  flowing  of  the  sea,  which,  though  very  well  for 
a  philosopher,  is  foreign  to  him  whose  business  it  is  to 
secure  the  ship.  So  neither  will  a  physician,  whose 
province  it  is  to  cure  diseases,  be  able  to  do  so,  though 
he  be  a  person  of  great  genius,  who  bestows  less  time 


78  LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM. 

on  the  hidden  and  intricate  method  of  nature,  and  adapt- 
ing his  means  thereto,  than  on  curious  and  subtle  specu- 
lations." 

The  following  is  frank  enough  :  —  "  Indeed,  if  I  may 
speak  my  mind  freel}',  I  have  been  long  of  opinion  that 
I  act  the  part  of  an  honest  man  and  a  good  physician  as 
often  as  I  refrain  entirely  from  medicines,  when,  upon 
visiting  the  patient,  I  find  him  no  worse  to-day  than  he 
was  yesterday ;  whereas,  if  I  attempt  to  cure  the  patient 
by  a  method  of  which  I  am  uncertain,  he  will  be  endan- 
gered both  by  the  experiment  I  am  going  to  make  on  him 
and  by  the  disease  itself;  nor  will  he  so  easily  escape  two 
dangers  as  one. 

"  That  practice,  and  that  alone,  will  bring  relief  to 
the  sufferer,  which  elicits  the  curative  indications  from 
the  phenomena  of  the  diseases  themselves,  and  confirms 
them  by  experience,  by  which  means  the  great  Hippoc- 
rates made  himself  immortal.  And  had  the  art  of  med- 
icine been  delivered  by  anyone  in  this  wise,  though  the 
cure  of  a  disease  or  two  might  come  to  be  known  to  the 
common  people,  yet  the  art  in  its  full  extent  would  then 
have  required  men  more  prudent  and  skilful  than  it 
does  now,  nor  would  it  lose  any  of  its  credit ;  for  as 
there  is  in  the  operations  of  Nature  (on  the  observa- 
tions of  which  a  true  medical  praxis  is  founded)  more 
of  nicety  and  subtlety  than  can  be  found  in  any  art  sup- 
ported on  the  most  specious  hypotheses,  so  the  science 
of  Medicine  which  Nature  teaches  will  exceed  an  ordi- 
nary capacity  in  a  much  greater  degree  than  that  which 
mere  philosophy  teaches." 

There  is  much  profound  truth  in  this.  Observation, 
in  its  strict  sense,  is  not  every  man's  gift,  and  but  few 
men's  actual  habit  of  mind.  Newton  used  to  say,  that 


LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM.  79 

if  in  any  one  way  he  differed  from  other  men,  it  was  in 
his  power  of  continued  attention  —  of  faithful,  unbroken 
observation ;  his  ladder  had  all  its  steps  entire,  and  he 
went  up   with  a  composed,   orderly  foot.     It  requires 
more  strength  and  fineness  of  mind,  more  of  what  de- 
serves to  be  called  genius,  to  make  a  series  of  genuine 
bservations  in  Medicine,  or  any  other  art,  than  to  spin 
ny  amount  of  nice  hypotheses,  or  build  any  number  of 
castella  in  aere"  as  Sydenham  calls  them.    The  observ- 
er's object  —  and  it  is  no  mean  one  —  is 

"  To  know  what 's  what,  and  that 's  as  high 
As  Metaphysic  wit  can  fly." 

Sydenham  adds,  "  Nor  will  the  publication  of  such 
observations  diminish  but  rather  increase  the  reputation 
of  our  art,  which,  being  rendered  more  difficult,  as  well 
as  more  useful,  only  men  of  sagacity  and  keen  sound 
judgment  would  be  admitted  as  physicians."  How  true 
to  the  sayings  of  his  great  master  in  his  Novum  Orga- 
num,  "Nature  is  only  subdued  by  submission."  "The 
subtilty  of  nature  is  far  beyond  that  of  sense,  or  of  the 
understanding,  and  the  specious  meditations  and  theories 
of  mankind  are  but  a  kind  of  insanity,  only  there  is  no 
one  to  stand  by  and  observe  it !  "  There  is  a  very  re- 
markable passage  in  Sydenham's  Treatise  of  the  Dropsy, 
in  which,  after  quoting  this  curious  passage  from  Hip- 
pocrates, "  Certain  physicians  and  philosophers  say  that 
.t  is  impossible  for  any  man  to  understand  medicine 
without  knowing  the  internal  structure  of  man  ;  for  my 
part,  I  think  that  what  they  have  written  or  said  of  nat- 
ure pertains  less  to  the  medical  than  the  pictorial  art," 
he  asserts  not  only  his  own  strong  conviction  of  the  im- 
portance of  a  knowledge  of  minute  anatomy  to  the  prac- 
titioner, but  also  his  opinion  that  what  Hippocrates 


80  LOCKE  AND  SYDENHAM. 

meant,  was  to  caution  against  depending  too  much  on, 
and  expecting  too  much  help  from,  anatomical  researches, 
to  the  superseding  of  the  scrupulous  observation  of  liv- 
ing phenomena,  of  successive  actions.1  "  For  in  all  dis- 
eases, acute  and  chronic,  it  must  be  owned  there  is  an 
inscrutable  TI  Oeiov,  a  specific  property  which  eludes  the 
keenest  anatomy." 

He  then  goes  on  to  say,  that  as  Hippocrates  censured 
the  abuse  of  anatomy,  so  in  his  own  day,  there  were 
many  who,  in  like  manner,  raised  hopes  for  Physic  from 
discoveries  in  Chemistry,  which,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
never  could  be  realized,  and  which  only  served  to  dis- 
tract from  the  true  Hippocratic  method  of  induction ; 
"  for  the  chief  deficiency  of  medicine  is  not  a  want  of 
efficacious  medicine.  Whoever  considers  the  matter 
thoroughly,  will  find  that  the  principal  defect  on  the 

l  As  far  as  the  cure  of  diseases  is  concerned,  Medicine  has  more  to 
do  with  human  Dynamics  than  Statics,  for  whatever  be  the  essence  of 
life  —  and  as  yet  this  rl  Oeiov,  this  nescimus  quid  divinum,  has  defied 
all  scrutiny  —  it  is  made  known  to  us  chiefly  by  certain  activities  or 
changes.  It  is  the  tendency  at  the  present  time  of  medical  research 
to  reverse  this  order.  Morbid  anatomy,  microscopical  investigations, 
though  not  confined  to  states  or  conditions  of  parts,  must  regard  them 
fully  more  than  actions  and  functions.  This  is  probably  what  Stahl 
means  when  he  says,"  Ubi  Physicus  desinit,  Medicus  incipit;  "  and  in 
'he  following  passage  of  his  rough  Tudcsque  Latin,  he  plainly  alludes 
;o  the  tendency,  in  his  day,  to  dwell  too  much  upon  the  materials  of 
the  human  body,  without  considering  its  actions  ltut  vivens."  The 
passage  is  full  of  the  subtilty  and  fire  and  depth  of  that  wonderful 
man.  "  Undique  hinc  material  advertitur  animus,  et  quas  crassius  in 
sensum  impingit  conformatio,  et  mutua  proportio  corporea  considera- 
tur  ;  motitum  ordo,  vis,  et  absoluta  magis  in  materiam  eneryia,  tem- 
pora  ejus,  gradus,  vices,  maxime  autem  omnium,  fines  obiter  in  ani- 
mum  admittuntur."  The  human  machine  has  been  compared  to  a 
watch,  and  some  hope  that  in  due  time  doctors  will  be  as  good  at  their 
craft  as  watchmakers  are  at  theirs ;  but  watchmakers  are  not  called 
»n  to  mend  their  work  while  it  is  going ;  this  makes  all  the  difference 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  81 

part  of  physic  proceeds,  not  from  a  scarcity  of  medicines 
to  answer  particular  intentions,  but  from  the  want  of 
knowing  the  intentions  to  be  answered,  for  an  apotheca- 
ry's apprentice  can  tell  me  what  medicine  will  purge, 
vomit,  or  sweat,  or  cool ;  but  a  man  must  be  conversant 
with  practice  who  is  able  to  tell  me  when  is  the  proper- 
est  time  for  administering  any  of  them." 

He  is  constantly  inculcating  the  necessity  of  getting 
our  diagnostic  knowledge  at  first-hand,  ridiculing  those 
descriptions  of  disease  which  the  manufacturers  of  "  Bod- 
ies of  medicine,"  "Hand-books,"  and  such  like,  make 
up  in  their  studies,  and  which  are  oftener  compositions 
than  portraits,  or  at  the  best  bad  copies,  and  which  the 
young  student  will  find  it  hard  enough  to  identify  in 
real  life.  There  is  too  much  of  this  we  fear  still ;  and 
Montaigne,  who  rejoices  in  having  a  sly  hit  at  his  cro- 
nies the  doctors,  might  still  say  with  some  reason,  "  Like 
him  who  paints  the  sea,  rocks,  and  heavens,  and  draws 
the  model  of  a  ship  as  he  sits  safe  at  his  table ;  but  send 
aim  to  sea,  and  he  knows  not  how  or  where  to  steer  ; 
so  doctors  oftentimes  make  such  a  description  of  our 
maladies  as  a  town-crier  does  of  a  lost  dog  or  donkey, 
of  such  a  color  and  height,  such  ears,  etc. ;  but  bring 
the  very  animal  before  him,  and  he  knows  it  not  for  all 
that." 

Everywhere  our  author  acknowledges  the  vis  medi- 
catrix  naturae,  by  which  alone  so  many  diseases  are 
cured,  and  without  or  against  which  none,  and  by  di- 
recting and  helping  which  medicine  best  fulfils  its  end  : 
"  For  I  do  not  think  it  below  me  or  my  art  to  acknowl- 
edge, with  respect  to  the  cure  of  fevers  and  other  dis- 
tempers, that  when  no  manifest  indication  pointed  out 
o  me  what  should  be  done,  I  have  consulted  my  pa- 
6 


82  LOCKE  AND   SVDENHAJI. 

tient's  safety  and  my  own  reputation,  most  effectually, 
by  doing  nothing  at  all.1  But  it  is  much  to  be  lamented 
that  abundance  of  patients  are  so  ignorant  as  not  to 
know,  that  it  is  sometimes  as  much  the  part  of  a  skilful 
physician  to  do  nothing,  as  at  others  to  apply  the  most 
energetic  remedies,  whence  they  not  only  deprive  them- 
selves of  fair  and  honorable  treatment,  but  impute  it  to 
ignorance  or  negligence." 

We  conclude  these  extracts  with  a  picturesque  de- 
scription. It  is  a  case  of  "  the  hysterics  "  in  a  man  :  — 
"  I  was  called  not  long  since  to  an  ingenious  gentleman 
who  had  recovered  from  a  fever,  but  a  few  days  before 
he  had  employed  another  physician,  who  blooded  and 
purged  him  soundly,  and  forbade  him  the  use  of  flesh. 
When  I  came  I  found  him  up,  and  heard  him  talking 
sensibly.  I  asked  why  I  was  sent  for,  to  which  one  of 
his  friends  replied  with  a  wink,  Wait  and  you  '11  see. 
Accordingly,  sitting  down  and  entering  into  discourse 
with  the  patient,  I  perceived  his  under  lip  was  thrust 
outwards,  and  in  frequent  motion,  as  happens  to  peevish 
children,  who  pout  before  they  cry,  which  was  succeeded 
by  the  most  violent  fit  of  crying,  with  deep  convulsive 
sobs.  I  conceived  this  was  occasioned  partly  by  his  long 
illness,  partly  by  the  previous  evacuations,  and  partly 
by  emptiness  ;  I  therefore  ordered  him  a  roast  chicken, 
and  a  pint  of  Canary"  Felix  ille  ! 

His  shrewdness  and  humor  are  shown  in  the  story 
Dr.  Paris  tells  in  his  Pharmacologia. 

"  This  great  physician,  Sydenham,  having  long  at- 
tended a  gentleman  of  fortune  with  little  or  no  advan- 
tage, frankly  avowed  his  inability  to  render  him  any 
further  service,  adding  at  the  same  time,  that  there  was 
a  physician  of  the  name  of  Robertson,  at  Inverness, 
See  note  B. 


LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM.  83 

*sho  had  distinguished  himself  by  the  performance  of 
many  remarkable  cures  of  the  same  complaint  as  that 
under  which  his  patient  labored,  and  expressing  a  con- 
viction that,  if  he  applied  to  him,  he  would  come  back 
cured.  This  was  too  encouraging  a  proposal  to  be  re- 
jected ;  the  gentleman  received  from  Sydenham  a  state- 
ment of  his  case,  with  the  necessary  letter  of  introduc- 
tion, and  proceeded  without  delay  to  the  place  iu 
question.  On  arriving  at  Inverness,  and  anxiously  in- 
quiring for  the  residence  of  Dr.  Robertson,  he  found  to 
his  utter  dismay  and  disappointment  that  there  was  no 
physician  of  that  name,  nor  ever  had  been  in  the  mem- 
ory of  any  person  there.  The  gentleman  returned,  vow- 
ing eternal  hostility  to  the  peace  of  Sydenham,  and  on 
his  arrival  at  home,  instantly  expressed  his  indignation 
at  having  been  sent  on  a  journey  of  so  many  hundred 
miles  for  no  purpose.  '  Well,'  replies  Sydenham,  '  are 
you  better  in  health?'  'Yes,  /  am  now  quite  well ; 
but  no  thanks  to  you.'  '  No,'  says  Sydenham,  '  but 
you  may  thank  Dr.  Robertson  for  curing  you.  I  wished 
to  send  you  a  journey  with  some  object  of  interest  in 
view  ;  I  knew  it  would  be  of  service  to  you  ;  in  going, 
you  had  Dr.  Robertson  and  his  wonderful  cures  in  con- 
templation ;  and  in  returning,  you  were  equally  engaged 
in  thinking  of  scolding  me.'  " 

In  making  these  selections  we  have  done  our  author 
great  injustice,  partly  from  having  to  give  them  either 
in  Swan's  translation  or  our  own,  and  thereby  losing 
much  of  the  dignity  and  nerve  —  the  flavor,  or  what 
artists  would  call  the  crispness  of  the  original ;  partly 
also  from  our  being  obliged  to  exclude  strictly  profes- 
sional discussions,  in  which,  as  might  be  expected,  his 
chief  value  and  strength  lie. 


84  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM 

We  know  nothing  in  medical  literature  more  finished 
than  his  letter  to  Dr.  Cole  on  the  hysterical  passion, 
and  his  monograph  of  the  gout.  Well  might  Edward 
Hannes,  the  friend  of  Addison,  in  his  verses  on  Syden- 
ham,  thus  sing  :  — 

"  Sic  te  scientem  non  faciunt  libri 
Et  dogma  pulchrum ;  sed  sapientia 
Enata  rebus,  mensque  facti 
Experiens,  auim usque  felix." 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  over-estimate  the  permanent 
impression  for  good  which  the  writings,  the  character,  and 
the  practice  of  Sydenham  have  made  on  the  art  of  heal- 
ing in  England,  and  on  the  Continent  generally.  In  the 
writings  of  Boerhaave,  Stahl,  Gaubius,  Piuel,  Bordeu, 
Haller,  and  many  others,  he  is  spoken  of  as  the  father 
of  rational  medicine  ;  as  the  first  man  who  applied  to  his 
profession  the  Baconian  principles  of  interpreting  and 
serving  nature,  and  who  never  forgot  the  master's  rule, 
"  Non  fingendum  aut  excogitandum,  sed  inveniendum, 
quid  natura  aut  faciat  aut  ferat."  He  was  what  Plato 
would  have  called  an  " artsman"  as  distinguished  from 
a  doctor  of  abstract  science.  But  he  was  by  no  means 
deficient  in  either  the  capacity  or  the  relish  for  specula- 
tive truth.  Like  all  men  of  a  large  practical  nature,  he 
could  not  have  been  what  he  was,  or  done  what  he  did, 
without  possessing  and  often  exercising  the  true  philoso- 
phizing faculty.  Pie  was  a  man  of  the  same  quality  of 
mind  in  this  respect  with  Watt,  Franklin,  and  John 
Hunter,  in  whom  speculation  was  not  the  less  genuine 
that  it  was  with  them  a  means  rather  than  an  end. 

This  distinction  between  the  science,  and  the  art  or 
craft,  or  as  it  was  often  called  the  cunning  of  medicine, 
is  one  we  have  already  insisted  upon,  and  the  importance 


LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM.  85 

of  which  we  consider  very-great,  in  the  present  condi- 
tion of  this  department  of  knowledge  and  practice.  We 
are  nowadays  in  danger  of  neglecting  our  art  in  master- 
ing our  science,  though  medicine  in  its  ultimate  resort 
must  always  be  more  of  an  art  than  of  a  science.  It  be- 
ing the  object  of  the  student  of  physic  to  learn  or  know 
some  thing  or  things,  in  order  to  be  able  safely,  effectu- 
ally, and  at  once,  to  do  some  other  thing ;  and  inasmuch 
as  human  nature  cannot  contain  more  than  its  fill,  a  man 
may  not  only  have  in  his  head  much  scientific  truth 
which  is  useless,  but  it  may  shut  out  and  hinder  and 
render  altogether  ineffectual,  the  active,  practical  work- 
manlike faculties,  for  whose  use  his  knowledge  was  pri- 
marily got.  It  is  the  remark  of  a  profound  thinker, 
that  i(  all  professional  men  labor  under  a  great  disadvan- 
tage in  not  being  allowed  to  be  ignorant  of  what  is  use- 
less;  every  one  fancies  that  he  is  bound  to  receive  and 
transmit  whatever  is  believed  to  have  been  known." 

"  It  appears  to  be  possible,"  says  Dr.  Thomas  Young, 
in  his  Life  of  Porson,  "  that  a  memory  may  in  itself  be 
even  too  retentive  for  real  practical  utility,  as  if  of  too 
microscopic  a  nature ;  and  it  seems  to  be  by  a  wise  and 
benevolent,  though  by  no  means  an  obvious,  arrange- 
ment of  a  Creative  Providence,  that  a  certain  degree  of 
oblivion  becomes  a  most  useful  instrument  in  the  advance- 
ment of  human  knowledge,  enabling  us  readily  to  look 
back  on  the  prominent  features  only  of  various  objects 
and  occurrences,  and  to  class  them,  and  reason  upon 
them,  by  the  help  of  this  involuntary  kind  of  abstraction 
and  generalization,  with  incomparably  greater  facility 
than  we  could  do  if  we  retained  the  whole  detail  of  what 
had  been  once  but  slightly  impressed  on  our  minds.  It 
s  thus,  for  example,  in  physic,  that  the  experienced 


83  LOCKE    AXD   SYDENHAM. 

practitioner  learns  at  length  to  despise  the  relation  of 
individual  symptoms  and  particular  cases,  on  which 
alone  the  empiric  insists,  and  to  feel  the  value  of  the 
Hippocratic  system  of  '  attending  more  to  the  prognos- 
tic than  the  diagnostic  features  of  disease;'  which,  to  a 
younger  student,  appears  to  be  perfect  imbecility." 

This  subject  of  art  and  science  is  hinted  at,  with  his 
usual  sagacity,  by  Plato,  in  a  singular  passage  in  his 
Theaetetus: —  "Particulars,"  he  says,  "are  infinite,  and 
the  higher  generalities  give  no  sufficient  direction  in 
medicine ;  but  the  pith  of  all  sciences,  that  which  makes 
the  artsman  differ  from  the  inexpert,  is  in  the  middle  prop- 
ositions, which,  in  every  particular  knowledge,  are  taken 
from  tradition  and  inexperience." *  It  would  not  be 
easy  to  convey  in  fewer  words,  more  of  what  deserves 
the  name  of  the  philosophy  of  this  entire  subject,  —  and 
few  things  would  be  more  for  the  advantage  of  the  best 
interests  of  all  arts  and  sciences,  and  all  true  progress 
in  human  knowledge  and  power,  than  the  taking  this 
passage  and  treating  it  exegetically,  as  a  divine  would 
say,  —  bringing  out  fully  its  meaning,  and  illustrating 
it  by  examples.  Scientific  truth  is  to  the  mind  of  a  phy- 

1  Being  anxious  to  see  what  was  the  context  of  this  remarkable 
passage,  which  Bacon  quotes,  as  if  verbatim,  in  his  Advancement  of 
Learning,  we  hunted  through  the  Theaetetus,  but  in  vain.  We  set  two 
friends,  thoroughbred  Grecians,  upon  the  scent,  but  they  could  find  no 
such  passage.  One  of  them  then  spoke  to  Sir  William  Hamilton,  and 
he  told  him  that  he  had  marked  that  passage  as  not  being  a  literal 
translation  of  any  sentence  in  Plato's  writings.  He  considered  it  a 
quotation  from  memory,  and  as  giving  the  substance  of  a  passage  in 
the  Philebus,  which  occurs  in  the  6th  and  7th  of  the  forty-two  sections 
of  that  Dialogue.  Perhaps  the  sentence  which  comes  nearest  to  the 
words  of  Bacon  is  the  last  in  the  6th  section,  beginning  with  the  words 

01  ift  vvv  Ttav   av9p<air(av   &6<f>oi.      Ta   Se  fieVa   airoGs   exfitvyu,  of   which  hd 

speaks,  seem  to  be  equivalent  to  "the  middle  propositions." 


LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM.  87 

sician  what  food  is  to  his  body ;  but,  in  order  to  his 
mhid  being  nourished  and  growing  by  this  food,  it  must 
be  assimilated  —  it  must  undergo  a  vital  internal  change 

—  must  be  transformed,  transmuted,  and  lose  its  original 
form.     This  destruction  of  former  identity  —  this  losing 
of  itself  in  being  received  into  the  general  mass  of  truth 

—  is  necessary  in  order  to  bring  abstract  truth  into  the 
condition  of  what  Plato  calls  "  the  middle  propositions," 
or,  as  Mr.  Mill  calls  them,  the  generalia  of  knowledge.1 
These  are  such  truths,  as  have  been  appropriated,  and 
vitally  adopted,  by  the  mind,  and  which,  to  use  Bacon's 
strong  words,  have  been  "  drenched  in  flesh  and  blood," 
have  been  turned  "  in  succum  et  sanguinem  ;  "  for  man's 
mind  cannot,  any  more  than  his  body,  live  on  mere  ele- 
mentary substances  ;    he  must  have  fat,  albumen,  and 
sugar ;  he  can  make  nothing  of  their  elements,  bare  car- 
bon, azote,  or  hydrogen.     And  more  than  this,  as  we 
have  said,  he  must  digest  and  disintegrate  his  food  be- 

1  The  following  we  give  as  a  sort  of  abstract  of  a  valuable  chapter 
n  Mill's  Logic  on  "The  Logic  of  Art:  " — An  art,  or  a  body  of  art, 
"nsists  of  rules,  together  with  as  much  of  the  speculative  propositions 
as  comprises  the  justification  of  those  rules.  Art  selects  and  arranges 
the  truths  of  science  in  the  most  convenient  order  for  practice,  instead 
of  the  order  most  convenient  for  thought  —  science  following  one  cause 
to  its  various  effects,  while  art  traces  one  effect  to  its  multiplied  and 
diversified  causes  and  conditions.  There  is  need  of  a  set  of  intermedi- 
ate scientific  truths,  derived  from  the  higher  generalities  of  science,  and 
destined  to  serve  as  the  (jeneralia  or  first  principles  of  art.  The  art 
proposes  for  itself  an  end  to  be  gained,  defines  the  end,  and  hands  it 
over  to  science.  Science  receives  it,  studies  it  as  a  phenomenon  or  effect, 
and  having  investigated  its  causes  acd  conditions,  sends  it  back  to  art, 
\vith  a  rationale  of  its  cause  or  causes,  but  nothing  more.  Art  then 
examines  their  combinations,  and  according  as  any  of  them  are  or  are 
not  in  human  power,  or  within  the  scope  of  its  particular  end,  pro- 
nounces upon  their  utility,  and  forms  a  rule  of  action.  The  rules  of 
art  do  not  attempt  to  comprise  more  conditions  than  require  to  be  at- 
tended to  in  ordinary  cases,  and  therefore  are  always  imperfect. 


88  LOCKE  AND  SYDENHAM, 

fore  it  can  be  of  any  use  to  him.  In  this  view,  as  in 
another  and  a  higher,  we  may  use  the  sacred  words,  — 
"  That  which  thou  sowest  is  not  quickened  except  it 
die;  except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and 
die,  it  ahideth  alone;  but  if  it  die,  it  bringeth  forth 
much  fruit ;  "  for  as  it  is  a  law  of  vegetable  life,  that  a 
seed  does  not  begin  to  pass  into  a  new  form,  does  not  be- 
gin to  grow  into  a  plant,  until  its  own  nature  is  changed, 
and  its  original  condition  is  broken  up,  until  it  "  dies  " 
in  giving  birth  to  something  better,  —  so  is  it  with  scien- 
tific truth,  taken  into  or  planted  in  the  mind,  —  it  must 
die,  else  it  abides  alone  —  it  does  not  germinate. 

Had  Plato  lived  now,  he  might  well  have  said,  "par- 
ticulars are  infinite."  Facts,  as  such,  are  merely  so 
many  units,  and  are  often  rather  an  encumbrance  to 
the  practical  man  than  otherwise.  These  "  middle  prop- 
ositions "  stand  mid-way  between  the  facts  in  their  in- 
finity and  speculative  truth  in  its  abstract  inertness ; 
they  take  from  both  what  they  need,  and  they  form  a 
tertium  quid,  upon  which  the  mind  can  act  practically, 
and  reason  upon  in  practice,  and  form  rules  of  action.1 

1  Locke  thus  puts  it:  —  "As  a  help  to  this,  I  think  it  may  be  pro- 
posed that,  for  the  saving  the  long  progression  of  the  thoughts  to  re- 
mote and  first  principles  in  every  case,  the  mind  should  provide  itself 
several  stages;  that  is  to  say,  intermediate  principles,  which  it  might 
have  recourse  to  in  the  examining  those  positions  that  come  in  its  way. 
These,  though  they  are  not  self-evident  principles,  yet  if  they  have 
been  made  out  from  them  by  a  wary  j-ii'l  unquestionable  deduction, 
may  be  depended  on  as  certain  and  infallible  truths,  and  serve  as  un- 
questionable truths  to  prove  other  points  depending  on  them  by  a 
nearer  and  shorter  view  than  remote  and  geueral  maxims.  These  may 
serve  as  landmarks  to  show  what  lies  in  the  direct  way  of  truth,  or  is 
quite  besides  it.  ...  Only  in  other  sciences  great  care  is  to  be  taken 
that  they  establish  those  intermediate  principles  with  as  much  caution, 
exactness,  and  indifferency,  as  mathematicians  use  in  the  settling  any 
Df  their  great  theorems.  When  this  is  not  done  but  men  take  up  tin 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  89 

* 

Sydenham,  Hippocrates,  Abernethy,  Pott,  Hunter,  Bail- 
lie,  Abercrombie,  and  such  like,  among  physicians,  are 
great  in  the  region  of  the  "  middle  propositions."  They 
selected  their  particulars  —  their  instances,  and  they  made 
their  higher  generalities  come  down,  they  appropriated 
them,  and  turned  them  into  blood,  bone,  and  sinew. 

The  great  problem  in  the  education  of  young  men  for 
the  practice  of  medicine  in  our  times,  is  to  know  how 
to  make  the  infinity  of  particulars,  the  prodigious  treas- 
ures of  mere  science,  available  for  practice  —  how  the 
art  may  keep  pace  with,  and  take  the  maximum  of  good 
out  of  the  science.  We  have  often  thought  that  the  ap- 
prenticeship system  is  going  too  much  into  disrepute. 
It  had  its  manifest  and  great  evils  ;  but  there  was  much 
good  got  by  it  that  is  not  to  be  got  in  any  other  way. 
The  personal  authority  and  attachment,  the  imitation  of 
their  master  —  the  watching  his  doings,  and  picking  up 
the  odds  and  ends  of  his  experience  —  the  coming  under 
the  influence  of  his  mind,  following  in  his  steps,  looking 
with  his  eyes,  and  unconsciously  accumulating  a  stock  of 
knowledge,  multifarious  it  might  be,  the  good  of  which 
was  not  fully  known  till  after-years  explained  and  con- 
firmed its  worth.  There  were  other  practical  things 
besides  jokes  learned  and  executed  in  the  apprentices' 
room, .and  there  were  the  friendships  for  life,  on  which 
so  much,  not  merely  of  the  comfort,  but  the  progress, 
of  a  physician  depends.  Now,  everything,  at  least  most, 
is  done  in  public,  in  classes  ;  and  it  is  necessarily  with 

principles  in  this  or  that  science  upon  credit,  inclination,  interest,  etc., 
in  haste,  without  due  examination  and  most  unquestionable  proof, 
they  lay  a  trap  for  themselves,  and  as  much  as  in  them  lies  captivate 
their  understandings  to  mistake,  falsehood,  and  error."  —  Of  the  Con~ 
duct  of  the  Understanding,  pp.  53,  54.  London,  1859. 


90  LOCKE   AND   SYDEXHAM. 

the  names  of  things  rather  than  the  things  themselves, 
or  their  management,  that  the  young  men  have  chiefly 
to  do.  The  memory1  is  exercised  more  than  the  senses 
or  the  judgment ;  and  when  the  examination  comes,  as  a 
matter  of  course  the  student  returns  back  to  his  teacher 
as  much  as  possible  of  what  he  has  received  from  him, 
and  as  much  as  possible  in  his  very  words.  He  goes 
over  innumerable  names.  There  is  little  opportunity 
even  in  anatomy  for  testing  his  power  or  his  skill  as  a 
workman,  as  an  independent  observer  and  judge,  under 
what  Sir  James  Clark  justly  calls  "  the  demoralizing 
system  of  cramming"  He  repeats  what  is  already  known ; 
he  is  not  able  to  say  how  all  or  any  of  this  knowledge 
may  be  turned  to  practical  account.  Epictetus  cleverly 
illustrates  this  very  system  and  its  fruits  :  "  As  if  sheep, 

1  Professor  Syme,  in  his  Letter  to  Sir  James  Graham  on  the  Med- 
ical Bill,  in  which,  in  twelve  pages,  he  puts  the  whole  of  this  tiresome 
question  on  its  true  footing,  makes  these  weighty  observations:  — 
"As  a  teacher  of  nearly  twenty-five  years'  standing,  and  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  dispositions,  habits,  and  powers  of  medical  students, 
I  beg  to  remark,  that  the  system  of  repeated  examinations  on  the 
same  subject  by  different  Boards,  especially  if  protracted  beyond  the 
age  of  twenty-two,  is  greatly  opposed  to  the  acquisition  of  sound  and 
useful  knowledge.  Medicine,  throughout  all  its  departments,  is  a 
scieuce  of  observation;  memory  alone,  however  retentive,  or  diligently 
assisted  by  teaching,  is  unable  to  afford  the  qualifications  for  practice, 
and  it  is  only  by  digesting  the  facts  learned,  through  reflection,  com- 
parison, and  personal  research,  that  they  can  be  appropriated  with  im- 
proving effect ;  but  when  the  mind  is  loaded  with  the  minuthe  of  ele- 
mentary medical  and  collateral  study,  it  is  incapable  of  the  intense 
and  devoted  attention  essential  to  attaining  any  approach  to  excellence 
in  practical  medicine  and  surgery.  It  has  accordingly  always  ap- 
peared to  me,  that  the  character  of  medical  men  depends  less  upon 
what  passes  during  the  period  even  of  studentship  than  upon  the  mode 
in  which  they  spend  the  next  years,  when,  their  trials  and  examina- 
tions being  over  the  whole  strength  of  a  young  and  disciplined  intel 
lect  may  be  preparing  itself  for  the  business  of  life." 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  91 

after  they  have  been  feeding,  should  present  their  shep- 
herds with  the  very  grass  itself  which  they  had  cropped 
and  stvallowed,  to  show  how  much  they  had  eaten,  instead 
of  concocting  it  into  wool  and  milk" 

Men  of  the  "  middle  propositions "  are  not  clever, 
glib  expounders  of  their  reasons  ;  they  prefer  doing  a 
thing  to  speaking  about  it,  or  how  it  may  be  done.  We 
remember  hearing  a  young  doctor  relate  how,  on  one 
occasion  when  a  student,  he  met  with  the  lute  Dr.  Aber- 
crombie,  when  visiting  a  man  who  was  laboring  under 
what  was  considered  malignant  disease  of  the  stomach. 
He  was  present  when  that  excellent  man  first  saw  the 
patient  along  with  his  regular  attendant.  The  doctor 
walked  into  the  room  in  his  odd,  rapid,  indifferent  way, 
which  many  must  recollect ;  scrutinized  all  the  curiosities 
on  the  mantelpiece ;  and  then,  as  if  by  chance,  found 
himself  at  his  patient's  bedside  ;  but  when  there  his  eye 
settled  upon  him  intensely  ;  his  whole  mind  was  busily 
at  work.  He  asked  a  few  plain  questions  ;  spoke  with 
great  kindness,  but  briefly ;  and  coming  back  to  consult, 
he  said,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  surgeon  and  the 
young  student,  "  The  mischief  is  all  in  the  brain,  the 
stomach  is  affected  merely  through  it.  The  case  will  do 
no  good ;  he  will  get  blind  and  convulsed,  and  die." 
He  then,  in  his  considerate,  simple  way,  went  over  what 
might  be  done  to  palliate  suffering  and  prolong  life. 
He  was  right.  The  man  died  as  he  said,  and  on  exam- 
ination the  brain  was  found  softened,  the  stomach  sound. 
The  young  student,  who  was  intimate  with  Dr.  Aber- 
crombie,  ventured  to  ask  him  what  it  was  in  the  look  of 
the  man  that  made  him  know  at  once.  "I  can't  tell 
you,  I  can  hardly  tell  myself  ;  but  I  rest  with  confidence 
upon  the  exactness  and  honesty  of  my  past  observations. 


92  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

I  remember  the  result,  and  act  upon  it ;  but  I  can't  put 
you,  or,  without  infinite  trouble,  myself,  in  possession 
of  all  the  steps."  "  But  would  it  not  be  a  great  saving 
if  you  could  tell  others  ?  "  said  the  young  doctor.  "  It 
would  be  no  such  thing  ;  it  would  be  the  worst  thing  that 
could  happen  to  you  ;  you  would  not  know  how  to  use 
it.  You  must  follow  in  the  same  road,  and  you  will 
get  as  far,  and  much  farther.  You  must  miss  often 
before  you  hit.  You  can't  tell  a  man  how  to  hit ;  you 
may  tell  him  what  to  aim  at."  "  Was  it  something  in 
the  eye  ? "  said  his  inveterate  querist.  "  Perhaps  it 
was,"  he  said  good-naturedly ;  "  but  don't  you  go  and 
blister  every  man's  occiput,  whose  eyes  are,  as  you 
think,  like  his."  l 

It  would  be  well  for  the  community,  and  for  the  real 
good  of  the  profession,  if  the  ripe  experience,  the  occa- 
sional observations  of  such  men  as  Sydenham  and  Aber- 
crombie,  formed  the  main  amount  of  medical  books,  in- 
stead of  Vade-Mecums,  Compendiums,  and  Systems,  on 

1  This  is  very  clearly  stated  by  Dr.  Mandeville,  the  acute  and  no- 
torious author  of  the  Fable  of  the  Sees,  in  his  dialogues  on  the  Hypo- 
chondria, one  of  his  best  works,  as  full  of  good  sense  and  learning  as 
of  wit.  "If  you  please  to  consider  that  there  are  no  words  in  any 
language  for  an  hundredth  part  of  all  the  minute  differences  that  are 
obvious  to  the  skilful,  you  will  soon  find  that  a  man  may  know  a  thing 
perfectly  well,  and  at  the  same  time  not  be  able  to  tell  you  why  or  how 
he  knows  it.  The  practical  knowledge  of  a  physician,  or  at  least  the 
most  considerable  part  of  it,  is  the  result  of  a  large  collection  of  obser- 
vations that  have  been  made  on  the  minutiae  of  things  in  human  bodies 
in  health  and  sickness;  but  likewise  there  are  such  changes  and  differ- 
ences in  these  minutiae  as  no  language  can  express:  and  when  a  man 
has  no  other  reason  for  what  he  does  than  the  judgment  he  has  formed 
from  such  observations,  it  is  impossible  he  can  give  you  the  one  without 
the  other  —  that  is,  he  can  never  explain  his  reasons  to  you,  unless  h« 
could  communicate  to  you  that  collection  of  observations  of  which  hit 
$kill  is  the  product." 


LOCKE  AND   SYDEXHAM.  93 

the  one  hand,  and  the  ardent  but  unripe  lucubrations  of 
very  young  men. 

It  is  said  that  facts  are  what  we  want,  and  every  pe- 
riodical is  filled  with  papers  by  very  young  physicians 
made  up  of  practical  facts.  What  is  fact?  we  would 
ask ;  and  are  not  many  of  our  new  facts  little  else  than 
the  opinions  of  the  writers  about  certain  phenomena,  the 
reality,  and  assuredly  the  importance  of  which,  is  by  no 
means  made  out  so  strongly  as  the  opinions  about  them 
are  stated?1  In  this  intensely  scientific  age,  we  need 
some  wise  heads  to  tell  us  what  not  to  learn  or  to  un- 
learn, fully  as  much  as  what  to  learn.  Let  us  by  all 
means  avail  ourselves  of  the  unmatched  advantages  of 
modern  science,  and  of  the  discoveries  which  every  day 
is  multiplying  with  a  rapidity  which  confounds ;  let  us 
convey  into,  and  carry  in  our  heads  as  much  as  we 
safely  can,  of  new  knowledge  from  Chemistry,  Statistics, 
the  Microscope,  the  Stethoscope,  and  all  new  helps  and 
methods ;  but  let  us  go  on  with  the  old  serious  diligence, 
—  the  experientia  as  well  as  the  experimenta  —  the  forg- 
ing and  directing,  and  qualifying  the  mind  as  well  as  the 
furnishing,  informing,  and  what  is  called  accomplishing 
it.  Let  us,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  wealth  pouring  in 
from  without,  keep  our  senses  and  our  understandings 
well  exercised  on  immediate  work.  Let  us  look  with 
our  own  eyes,  and  feel  with  our  own  fingers.2 

1  Louis,  in  the  preface  to  the  first  edition  of  his  Researches  on 
Phthisis,  pays —  "Few  persons  are  free  from  delusive  mental  tenden- 
cies, especially  in  youth,  interfering  with  true  observation  ;  and  I  am 
of  opinion  that,  generally  speaking,  ice  ought  to  place  less  reliance  on 
cases  collected  by  very  young  men ;  and,  above  all,  not  intrust  the  task 
of  accumulating  facts  to  them  exclusively." 

2  We  all  know  Cullen's  pithy  saying,  that  there  are  more  false  facts 
than  theories  in  medicine.    In  his  Treatise  on  the  Materia  Afedica, 
which  was  given  to  the  world  when  its  author  was  in  his  seventy- 


94  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

One  natural  consequence  of  the  predominance  in  our 
days  of  the  merely  scientific  element  is,  that  the  elder 

seventh  year,  we  came  upon  the  full  statement  of  the  many  mistakes 
and  untruths  which  are  drawii  from  "false  experience."  These  he 
iivides  into  eight  classes  :  — 

1st,  In  respect  to  those  supposed  remedies,  which,  from  their  nature, 
and  their  being  placed  at  a  distance  from  the  human  body,  cannot  be 
supposed  to  have  any  action  upon  it.  Such  are  charms,  inodorous 
amulets,  sympathetic  powders,  etc. 

2d,  Another  instance  of  false  experience  is  with  respect  to  the  vir- 
tues imputed  to  substances  which,  when  taken  into  the  body,  pass 
through  it  unchanged,  such  as  mountain  crystal,  gems,  and  precious 
stones,  which  formerly  had  a  place  in  our  dispensatories. 

3d,  Whenever  to  substances  obviously  inert,  or  such  as  have  little 
power  of  changing  the  human  body,  we  find  considerable  effects  im- 
puted. Thus  when  the  excellent  Linna-us  tells  us  he  preserved  him- 
self from  gout  by  eating  every  year  plentifully  of  strawberries  !  (Here 
we  suspect  the  Swede  was  wiser  and  righter  than  the  Scot.) 

4th,  tVhen  medicines  are  said  to  cure  what  we  have  no  evidence 
ever  existed.  As  when  Dr.  Boerhaave  says  certain  medicines  correct 
an  atrabilis,  a  condition  he  nowhere  proves  the  existence  of. 

The  5lh  refers  to  solvents  of  the  stone  taken  by  the  mouth,. to  many 
emmenagogues  and  diuretics. 

The  Gth,  where  effects  that  do  really  take  place  are  imputed  to  medi- 
cines employed,  when  they  are  due  to  the  spontaneous  operations  of 
the  anlni.nl  economy,  or  of  nature,  as  we  commonly  sjteai  ;  and  he  in- 
stances the  vegetables  mentioned  in  the  Materia  Medica  as  Vulnera- 
ries. 

The  1th  and  8th  are  instances  of  false  experience  from  mistakes  con- 
cerning tlie  real  nature  of  the  disease  treated,  and  of  the  drug  em- 
ployed. It  is  curious  to  us  who  are  seventy  years  older,  and  it  may 
be  wiser  (in  the  main)  to  note  how  permanently  true  much  of  this  still 
is,  and  how  oddly  and  significantly  illustrative  of  the  very  fallacies 
classified  by  himself,  is  the  little  that  is  not  true. 

Then  follows  what  we  had  chiefly  in  view  in  this  quotation.  Dr. 
Cullen,  after  stating  that  these  false  experiences  of  writers  upon  the 
Materia  Medica  were  mistakes  of  judgment,  and  not  made  under  any 
consciousness  of  falsehood,  reprobates  with  much  severity  the  manu- 
facture tf  facts  in  medicine,  which  have,  for  reasons  of  various  kinds, 
been  obtruded  on  the  public  by  persons  aware  of  their  being  false,  or 
which,  at  K-ast,  they  have  never  proved  to  be  true  ;  and  he  ends  with 
this  remarkable  statement,  the  moral  of  which  is  not  peculiar  to  1789 . 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  95 

too  much  serves  the  younger.  The  young  man  teaches 
and  talks,  and  the  old  man  learns  and  is  mute.1  This 
is  excellent  when  it  is  confined  to  the  statement  of  dis- 
covery, or  the  constantly  evolving  laws  of  knowledge, 
or  of  matter.  But  the  young  men  have  now  almost  the 
whole  field  to  themselves.  Chemistry  and  Physiology 
have  become,  to  all  men  above  forty,  impossible  sciences  ; 
they  dare  not  meddle  with  them  ;  and  they  keep  back 
from  giving  to  the  profession  their  own  personal  experi- 
ence in  matters  of  practice,  from  the  feeling  that  much 
of  their  science  is  out  of  date  ;  and  the  consequence  is, 
that,  even  in  matters  of  pvactice,  the  young  men  are  in 
possession  of  the  field.  Fruit  is  pleasantest  and  every 
way  best  when  it  is  ripe  ;  and  practical  observations,  to 
be  worth  anything,  must  be  more  of  a  fruit  than  a  blos- 
som, and  need  not  be  plucked  when  green. 

"  Plutarch,"  says  old  Heberden,  "  has  told  us  that  the 
life  of  a  vestal  virgin  was  divided  into  three  portions  : 
in  the  first  she  learned  the  duties  of  her  profession,  in 
the  second  she  practised  them,  and  in  the  third  she 
taught  them  to  others."  This  he  maintained,  and  we 

o  ' 

cordially  agree  with  him,  was  no  bad  model  for  the  life 
of  a  physician,  and  he  followed  it  himself,  as  shown  by 
his  motto  prefixed  to  his  Classical  Commentaries,  — 
Ftpcov  KOL  Ka/xi/eiv  ov/cm  SiW/xet/os,  TOVTO  TO  j3i/3\t.o 


—  "  This  leads  me  to  observe,  that  a  very  fertile  source  of  false  facts 
has  been  opened  for  some  time  past.  There  is  in  some  young  phy- 
sicians the  vanity  of  being  the  authors  of  observations,  which  are 
often  too  hastily  made,  and  sometimes  perhaps  entirely  dressed  in  the 
-.loset.  We  dare  not  at  present  be  too  particular,  but  the  next  age  will 
discern  many  instances  of  perhaps  the  direct  falsehoods,  and  certainly 
the  many  mistakes  in  fact,  produced  in  the  present  age  concerning  the 
powers  and  virtues  of  medicine."  —  Treatise  on  the  Materia  Medica, 
chap.  ii.  article  iv.  pp.  142-153. 
i  See  Note  C. 


96  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

George  Jllius  may  explain  to  the  admiring  George 
pater,  the  merits  and  arcana  of  his  Prichett  rifle,  or  his 
Deane  and  Adams'  revolver,  —  any  scientific  improve- 
ment the  youngster  may  teach  his  "  governor,"  but  don't 
let  him  go  further,  and  take  to  giving  him  instructions 
in  the  art  of  finding  and  bagging  his  game.  This  is  ex- 
actly where  we  are  so  apt  to  go  wrong  in  medicine,  as 
well  as  in  fowling. 

Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  we  despair  of  Medicine 
gaining  the  full  benefit  of  the  general  advance  in  knowl- 
edge and  usefulness.  Far  from  it.  TVe  believe  there 
is  more  of  exact  diagnosis,  of  intelligent,  effectual  treat- 
ment of  disease,  —  that  there  are  wider  views  of  princi- 
ples—  director,  ampler  methods  of  discovery,  at  this 
moment  in  Britain  than  at  any  former  time ;  and  we 
have  no  doubt  that  the  augmentation  is  still  proceeding, 
and  will  defy  all  calculation.  But  we  are  likewise  of 
opinion,  that  the  office  of  a  physician,  in  the  highest 
sense,  will  become  fully  more  difficult  than  before,  will 
require  a  greater  compass  and  energy  of  mind,  as  work- 
ing in  a  wider  field,  and  using  finer  weapons ;  and  that 
there  never  was  more  necessity  for  making  every  effort 
to  strengthen  and  clarify  the  judgment  and  tho  senses 
by  inward  discipline,  and  by  outward  exercise,  than 
when  the  importance  and  the  multitude  of  the  objects  of 
which  they  must  be  cognizant  are  so  infinitely  increased. 
The  middle  propositions  must  be  attended  to,  and  filled 
up  as  the  particulars  and  the  higher  generalities  crowd  in. 

It  would  be  out  of  place  in  a  paper  so  desultory  as 
the  present,  to  enter  at  large  upon  the  subjects  now 
hinted  at  —  the  education  of  a  physician  —  the  degree 
of  certainty  in  medicine — its  progress  and  prospects, 
and  the  beneficial  effects  it  may  reasonably  expect  from 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  97 

the  advance  of  the  purer  sciences.  But  we  are  not  more 
firmly  persuaded  of  anything  than  of  the  importance  of 
such  an  inquiry,  made  largely,  liberally,  and  strictly,  by 
a  man  at  once  deep,  truthful,  knowing,  and  clear.  How 
are  we  to  secure  for  the  art  of  discerning,  curing,  and 
preventing  disease,  the  maximum  of  good  and  the  min- 
imum of  mischief,  in  availing  ourselves  of  the  newest 
discoveries  in  human  knowledge  ? 

To  any  one  wishing  to  look  into  this  most  interesting, 
and  at  the  present  time,  vital  question,  we  would  recom- 
mend a  paper  by  I^:-.  Sellar,  admirable  equally  in  sub- 
stance and  in  expression,  entitled,  "  On  the  Signification 
of  Fact  in  Medicine,  and  on  the  hurtful  effects  of  the 
incautious  use  of  such  modern  sources  of  fact  as  the 
microscope,  the  stethoscope,  chemical  analysis,  statistics, 
etc. ;  "  it  may  be  found  in  No.  177  of  the  Edinburgh 
Medical  and  Surgical  Journal.  We  merely  give  a  sam- 
ple or  two,  in  which  our  readers  will  find,  in  better 
words,  much  of  what  we  have  already  asserted.  "  Med- 
icine still  is,  and  must  continue  for  ages  to  be,  an  em- 
pirico-rationalism"  "  A  sober  thinker  can  hardly  ven- 
ture to  look  forward  to  such  an  advanced  state  of  chem- 
ical rationalism  as  would  be  sufficient  for  pronouncing  a 
priori  that  sulphur  would  cure  scabies,  iodine  goitre, 
citric  acid  the  scurvy,  or  carbonate  of  iron  neuralgia." 
"  Chemistry  promises  to  be  of  immediate  service  in  the 
practice  of  medicine,  not  so  much  by  offering  us  a  rational 
chemical  pathology,  but  by  enlarging  the  sources  from 
which  our  empirical  rules  are  to  be  drawn."  Here  we 
have  our  "middle  propositions."  ''The  great  bulk  of 
practical  medical  kuovvledge  is  obviously  the  fruit  of 
individual  minds,  naturally  gifted  for  excellence  in  medi- 
cine ;  "  —  but  the  whole  paper  deserves  serious  continu- 
7 


98  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

ous  study.  We  would  also,  in  spite  of  some  ultraisms 
in  thought  and  language,  the  overflowings  of  a  more 
than  ordinarily  strong,  and  ardent,  and  honest  mind, 
recommend  heartily  the  papers  of  Dr.  Forbes,  which 
appeared  at  the  close  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Medical 
Review,  in  which  he  has,  with  what  we  cannot  call  else 
or  less  than  magnanimity,  spoken  so  much  wholesome, 
though,  it  may  be,  unpalatable  truth :  and  finally,  we 
would  send  every  inquiring  student  who  wishes  to  know 
how  to  think  and  how  to  speak  on  this  subject  at  once 
with  power,  clearness,  and  compactness,  and  be  both 
witty  and  wise,  to  Dr.  Latham's  little  three  volumes  on 
Clinical  Medicine.  The  first  two  lectures  in  the  earliest 
volume  are  "  lion's  marrow,"  the  very  pith  of  sense  and 
sound-mindeflness.  We  give  a  morsel  —  "  The  medical 
men  of  England  do  and  will  continue  to  keep  pace  with 
the  age  in  which  they  live,  however  rapidly  ifc  may  ad- 
vance. I  wish  to  see  physicians  still  instituted  in  the 
same  discipline,  and  still  reared  in  fellowship  and  com- 
munion with  the  wisest  and  best  of  men,  and  that  not 
for  the  sake  of  what  is  ornamental  merely,  and  becoming 
to  their  character,  but  because  I  am  persuaded  that  that 
discipline  which  renders  the  mind  most  capacious  of  wis- 
dom and  most  capable  of  virtue,  can  hold  the  torch  and 
light  the  path  to  the  sublimest  discoveries  in  every  sci- 
ence. It  was  the  same  discipline  which  contributed  to 
form  the  minds  of  Newton  and  of  Locke,  of  Harvey  and 
of  Sydenham." 

He  makes  the  following  beautiful  remark  in  leading 
his  pupils  into  the  wards  of  St.  Bartholomew's :  —  "In 
entering  this  place,  even  this  vast  hospital,  where  there 
is  many  a  significant,  many  a  wonderful  thing,  you  shall 
take  me  along  with  you,  and  I  will  be  your  guide.  Bui 


LOCKE  AND   SYDEXHAM.  99 

it  is  by  your  own  eyes,  and  your  ears  and  your  own 
minds,  and  (/  may  add)  by  your  own  hearts,  that  you 
must  observe,  and  learn,  and  profit.  I  can  only  point  to 
the  objects,  and  say  little  else  than  '  See  here  and  set 
there:  " 

This  is  the  great  secret,  the  coming  to  close  quarters 
with  your  object,  having  immediate,  not  mediate  cogni- 
zance of  the  materials  of  study,  apprehending  first,  and 
then  doing  your  best  to  comprehend.  For,  to  adapt 
Bacon's  illustration,  which  no  one  need  ever  weary  oi 
giving  or  receiving,  —  a  good  practical  physician  is  more 
akin  to  the  working-bee  than  to  the  spider  or  the  ant. 
Instead  of  spinning,  like  the  schoolmen  of  old,  endless 
webs  of  speculation  out  of  their  own  bowels,  in.  which 
they  were  themselves  afterwards  as  frequently  caught 
and  destroyed  as  any  one  else,  or  hoarding  up,  grain  af- 
ter grain,  the  knowledge  of  other  men,  and  thus  becom 
ing  "  a  very  dungeon  of  learning,"  in  which  (ffibernice) 
they  lose  at  once  themselves  and  their  aim  —  they  should 
rather  be  like  the  brisk  and  public-hearted  bee,  who,  by 
divine  instinct,  her  own  industry,  and  the  accuracy  oi 
her  instrument,  gathers  honey  from  all  flowers.  "  For- 
mica colligit  et  utitur,  ut  faciunt  empirici ;  aranea  ex  se 
fila  eclucit  ueque  a  particularibus  materiam  petit ;  apis 
denique  cseteris  se  mrlius  gent,  hsec  indigesta  a  floribu* 
mella  colligit,  delude  in  viscerum  cellulas  concocta  ma 
turat,  iisdern  tandem  insudat  donee  ad  integram  perfeq 
tionem  perduxerit." 

We  had  intended  giving  some  account  of  the  bear- 
ing that  the  general  enlightenment  of  the  community  has 
upon  Medicine,  and  especially  of  the  value  of  the  labor? 
of  such  men  as  Dr.  Andrew  Combe,  Dr.  Henry  Mar 
shall,  Sir  James  Clark,  and  others,  in  the  collateral  sub 


100  LOCKE  AND  SYDENHAM. 

jects  leading  into,  and  auxiliary  to,  pure  Medicine,  — 
but  we  have  no  space  to  do  them  any  measures  of  justice. 
The  full  importance,  and  the  full  possibility  of  the  pre- 
vention of  disease  —  in  all  its  manifold,  civil,  moral,  and 
personal  bearings,  —  is  not  yet  by  any  means  adequately 
acknowledged ;  there  are  few  things  oftener  said,  or  less 
icarched  into,  than  that  prevention  is  better  than  cure. 

Let  not  our  young  and  eager  doctors  be  scandalized 
at  our  views  as  to  the  comparative  uncertainty  of  medi- 
cine as  a  science :  such  has  been  the  opinion  of  the  wis- 
est and  most  successful  masters  of  the  craft.  Radcliffe 
used  to  say,  that  "  when  young,  he  had  fifty  remedies 
for  every  disease ;  and  when  old,  one  remedy  for  fifty 
diseases."  Dr.  James  Gregory  said,  "  Young  men  kill 
their  patients ;  old  men  let  them  die."  Gaubius  says, 
"  Equidem  candide  dicam,  plura  me  indies,  dum  in  artis 
usu  versor,  dediscere  quam  discere,  et  in  crescente  aetate, 
minui  potius  quam  augeri,  scientiam,"  meaning  by  "sci- 
entia"  an  abstract  systematic  knowledge.  And  Bordeu 
gives  as  the  remark  of  an  old  physician,  "  J'etois  dogma- 
tique  a  vingt  aus,  observateur  a  trente,  a  quarante  je  f  us 
empirique  ;  je  n'ai  point  de  systeme  a  cinquante."  And 
he  adds,  in  reference  to  how  far  a  medical  man  must 
personally  know  the  sciences  that  contributed  to  his  art, 
—  "  Jphicrates,  the  Athenian  general,  was  hard  pressed 
by  an  orator  before  the  people,  to  say  what  he  was,  to 
be  so  proud :  '  Are  you  a  soldier,  a  captain,  an  engi- 
neer :  a  spy,  a  pioneer,  a  sapper,  a  miner  ? '  '  No,'  says 
Iphicrates,  '  I  am  none  of  these,  but  I  command  them 
all.'  So  if  one  asks  me,  Are  you  an  empiric,  a  dogma- 
tist, an  observer,  an  anatomist,  a  chemist,  a  microscopist  ? 
I  answer,- No,  but  I  am  captain  of  them  all." 

And  to  conclude  these  desultory  notes  in  the  opening 


LOCKE  AND   SYDEXHAM.  101 

words  of  the  Historia  Vita  et  Mortis,  — "  Speramus 
enim  et  cupimus  futurum,  ut  id  plurimorum  bono  fiat ; 
atque  ut  rnedici  nobiliores  animos  nonnihil  erigant, 
neque  toti  sint  in  curarum  sordibus,  neque  solum  pro 
necessitate  honorentur,  sed  fiant  demum  omnipotentice  et 
dementia  divince  administri"  "  Etsi  enim,"  as  he  pa- 
thetically adds,  "  nos  Christian!  ad  terram  promissionis 
perpetuo  aspiremus  et  anhelemus ;  tamen  interim  itine- 
rantibus  nobis,  in  hac  mundi  eremo,  etiam  calceos  istos 
et  tegmina  (corporis  scilicet  nostri  fragilis)  quam  mini- 
mum atteri,  erit  signuui  divini  favoris."  1 

We  have  left  ourselves  no  space  to  notice  Pr.  Green- 
hill's  collected  edition  of  Sydenham's  Latin  works.  It 
is  everything  that  the  best  sholarship,  accuracy,,  and 
judgment  could  make  it.  We  regret  we  cannot  say  so 
much  for  Dr.  R.  G.  Latham's  translation  and  Life.  The 
first  is  inferior  as  a  whole  to  Swan's,  and  in  parts  to 
Pechey's  and  Wallis's :  and  the  Life,  which  might  have 
contained  so  much  that  is  new,  valuable,  and  entertain- 
ing, is  treated  with  a  curious  infelicity  and  clumsiness, 
that  is  altogether  one  of  the  oddest,  most  gauche  and 
limping  bits  of  composition  we  ever  remember  having 
met  with ;  and  adds  another  to  the  many  instances  to 
which  Bishop  Lowth  and  Cobbett  are  exceptions,  of  a 
grammarian  writing,  if  not  ungrammatically,  at  least 

l  "  For  it  is  our  earnest  hope  and  desire,  that  the  efficacy  of  medi- 
cine may  be  infinitely  increased,  and  that  physicians  may  bear  them- 
selves more  erect  and  nobly,  and  not  be  wholly  taken  up  with  sordid 
gains  and  cares,  not  be  honored  from  necessity  alone,  but  may  at 
length  become  the  executors  of  Divine  omnipotence  and  mercy  ;  for 
though  we  who  are  Christians  do  without  ceasing  long  for,  and  pant 
after,  the  land  of  promise,  we  cannot  fail  to  regard  it  as  a  token  of  the 
favor  of  God,  when,  as  we  travel  through  this  wilderness  of  the  world, 
these  shoes  and  garments  of  our  frail  bodies  are  rendered,  as  little  as 
may  be,  subject  to  decay." 


102  LOCKE  AND  SYDEXHAM. 

without  elegance,  and  occasionally  without  clearness. 
It  is  one  thing  to  know,  and  often  quite  another  to  do, 
the  right  thing. 

We  cannot  close  these  notices  of  Sydenham  without 
thanking  Dr.  Latham  for  printing  in  the  Appendix  to 
his  second  volume,  the  manuscript  preserved  in  the  pub- 
lic library  of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  and  referred 
to  in  the  Biographia  Britannica,  under  Sydenham's 
name.  Dr.  Latham  states  that  it  is  in  a  more  modern 
handwriting  than  that  of  the  author's  time,  and  is  headed 
Theologia  JRationalis,  by  Dr.  Thomas  Sydenham.  This 
is  all  that  is  known,  but  we  think  it  bears  strong  inter- 
nal evidence  of  being  authentic.  The  following  note 
upon  it,  by  a  kind  friend,1  who  is  well  able  to  judge, 
gives  a  just  estimate  of  this  remarkable  relic:  — 

"  I  have  looked  with  much  interest  over  the  fragment 
you  point  out  in  Sydeuham's  works.  I  think  it  is  quite 
misnamed.  It  should  be  Ethica  Rationalis,  or  Naturalis, 
since  its  avowed  aim  is  not  to  examine  closely  the  foun- 
dations of  natural  theology,  but  rather  '  the  question  is, 
how  far  the  light  of  Nature,  if  closely  adverted  to,  may 
be  extended  toward  the  making  of  good  men'  This 
question  is  closely  pursued  throughout,  and  leads  to  the 
result  that  there  is  an  order  in  man's  nature,  which  leads 
lo  a  threefold  set  of  obligations,  according  to  the  com- 
jaoh  division,  —  towards  God,  society,  and  one's-self. 
This  is  the  plan  according  to  which  the  fragment  is 
blocked  out.  The  perfections  and  providence  of  God  are 
discussed  solely  as  laying  a  foundation  for  man's  duties ; 
and  these,  —  adoration,  prayer,  submission,  confession 
of  sin  —  are  summed  up  in  pages  312,  313.  Next  fol 
1  Rev.  John  Cairns,  D.  D. 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  103 

ow  the  duties  to  society,  very  speedily  despatched ;  and 
those  to  self  discussed  more  at  length,  such  as  temper- 
nee,  truth,  modesty,  prudent  enjoyment  in  subservience 
to  reason.  With  the  same  ethical  aim  the  question  of 
immortality  is  discussed,  solely  as  a  help  to  virtue  and 
to  the  predominance  of  reason.  In  arguing  this  from 
mmateriality,  the  author  is  entangled  in  the  usual  diffi- 
Cilty  about  the  souls  of  the  brutes,  but  escapes  by  the 
Cartesian  denial  of  their  true  thinking  power  ;  and  more 
satisfactorily  by  urging  the  sentimental  argument  from 
men's  desire  of  immortality,  and  the  more  strictly  moral 
one,  from  unequal  retribution.  All  this,  I  think,  bears 
out  the  view  I  have  taken.  There  is  not,  perhaps,  so 
much  originality  in  the  views  of  the  author  as  general 
soundness  and  loftiness  of  moral  tone,  with  that  fine 
power  of  illustration  which  you  have  noticed.  I  agree 
with  you  in  seeing  much  of  the  spirit  both  of  Locke  and 
Butler  :  of  Locke,  in  the  spirit  of  observation  and  geni- 
ality ;  of  Butler,  in  the  clear  utterances  as  to  the  su- 
premacy of  reason,  and  the  necessity  of  living  according 
to  our  true  nature,  not  to  speak  of  other  agreements  in 
detail.  I  think  the  paper  well  deserves  a  cordial  recog- 
nition, though  it  hardly  reaches  out,  perhaps  in  any  one 
direction,  beyond  the  orthodox  ethics  of  the  seventeenth 
century." 

We  give  at  random  some  extracts  from  the  Theologia 
Rationalis :  —  "  Nor  indeed  can  I  entertain  any  thoughts 
more  derogatory  from  the  majesty  of  this  Divine  Being, 
than  not  supposing  him  to  be  a  free  agent;  but  having 
}nce  put  all  his  works  out  of  his  own  hands,  to  be  con- 
cluded within  the  limits  of  his  own  establishm'  —  hath 
determined  irrational  beings  to  act  in  some  uniform 
course,  suitable  to  the  good  of  themselves  and  tho 


104  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

whole.  And  tho'  he  hath  set  up  certain  lights  in  intel- 
lectual natures,  whch  may  direct  them  to  pursue  ends 
suitable  to  their  natures,  yet  having  given  these  a  lib- 
erty of  will  incident  to  the  very  nature  of  reasonable 
beings,  he  retains  his  power  of  inclining  or  not  inclin- 
ing such  intellectual  natures  to  pursue  courses  leading 
to  their  welfare." 

"  Also,  from  the  same  consideration  (the  excellence 
of  my  mind  above  my  body)  it  is  that  I  am  neither  to 
thinke,  speake,  or  act  anything  that  is  indecorous  or  dis- 
gracefull  to  this  Divine  inmate,  whose  excellency  above 
my  body  Nature  hath  tacitly  pointed  out,  by  impressing 
upon  me  a  verecundia,  or  being  ashamed  of  many  ac- 
tions of  my  body,  wch  therefore  I  hide  from  those  of  my 
own  species.  But  now,  forasmuch  as  I  consist  likewise 
of  a  body  wch  is  submitted  to  the  same  conditions  with 
other  animals,  of  being  nourished  and  propagating  my 
kind,  and,  likewise,  wch  wants  many  other  conveniences 
of  clothing,  housing,  and  the  like,  which  their  nature  re- 
quires not ;  all  those  likewise  are  to  be  respected  by  me, 
according  to  my  several  wants ;  but  still  with  a  subser- 
vience to  my  reason,  which  is  my  superior  part,  and  acts 
flowing  from  the  same,  my  chiefest  business  ;  as  an  em- 
bassador  who  is  sent  into  a  foreign  country,  is  not  sent 
to  eat  and  to  drink,  tho'  he  is  enforced  to  do  both." 

"  When  I  consider  that  the  infinite  Governour  of  the 
universe  hath  so  made  me,  that  in  my  intellect  I  have 
some  small  glympses  of  his  being,  whilst  I  cann't  but  ap- 
prehend that  immensity  of  power  and  wisdom  wch  is  in 
him,  and  doth  appear  in  whatsoever  I  see,  and  this  I 
must  apprehend,  even  if  I  endeavour  not  to  do  it,  it  being 
closely  riveted,  and  as  it  were  co-essential  to  my  nature ; 
or  if  I  have  gotten  of  it  by  hearsay  onely,  it  being  so 


LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM.  105 

fitted  to  my  nature,  that  I  must  needs  believe  it,  wch  two 
make  up  the  same  thing.  Now  how  can  I  think  that 
this  Divine  Being,  that  hath  admitted  me  to  this  little 
acquaintance  wth  him,  will  let  the  laying  down  of  my 
body  perfectly  break  off  this  acquaintance,  and  not 
rather  that  the  throwing  of  this  load  of  corruption  will 
put  my  soul  into  a  condition  more  suitable  to  its  own 
nature,  it  being  much  more  difficult  to  think  how  such  a 
noble  substance  as  the  soul  should  be  united  to  the  body, 
than  how  it  should  subsist  separately  from  it.  But  add 
to  this,  that  I  have  not  only  faculties  of  knowing  this 
Divine  Being,  but  in  complyance  with  him,  I  have 
adored  him  with  all  the  attention  I  could  screw  up  my 
heavy  mind  unto,  and  have  endeavoured  to  yield  obedi- 
ence to  those  lawes  wch  he  hath  written  upon  my  nat- 
ure ;  that  I  who  have  done  this  (supposing  that  I  have 
done  it),  should  extinguish  when  my  body  dies,  is  yet 
more  unlikely.  Moreover  I  consider  that  this  Maker 
of  the  universe  hath  brought  his  ends  so  together,  that 
he  hath  implanted  no  affections  upon  the  meanest  ani- 
mal, but  hath  made  objects  to  answer  them  ;  as  he  that 
hath  made  the  eye  hath  made  colours,  and  he  that  hath 
made  the  organs  of  hearing  hath  likewise  made  sounds, 
and  so  of  an  infinite  number  of  other  affections,  not  only 
in  animals,  but  even  in  those  natures  inferior  to  them 
all,  wch  have  objects  suited  to  them ;  and  if  they  had 
not,  there  would  be  a  flaw  even  in  the  constitution  of  the 
universe,  wch  can't  be  charged  upon  the  infinitely  wise 
Creator.  But  now  that  there  should  be  found  in  man- 
kind a  certain  appetite  or  reaching  out  after  a  future  hap- 
piness, and  that  there  should  be  no  such  thing  to  answer 
to  it,  but  that  this  cheat  should  be  put  upon  the  rational 
part  of  man,  wch  is  the  highest  nature  in  the  globe  where 
vfQ  live,  is  to  me  very  improbable." 


106  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

We  subjoin,  with  Mr.  Black's  kind  permission,  a  por- 
tion pf  the  Life  of  Sydenham,  iu  the  last  edition  of  his 
admirable  Encyclopaedia  ;  it  contains,  I  believe,  all  the 
old  and  some  new  facts  :  — 

"  SYDENHAM,  THOMAS  —  the  greatest  name  in  Eng- 
lish practical  medicine  —  was  born  in  1624  at  Winford 
Eagle,  Dorsetshire,  where  his  father,  William  Syden- 
ham, had  a  fine  estate.  He  was  a  commoner  of  Mag- 
dalen Hall,  Oxford,  1642,  but  was  obliged  to  leave  that 
city  when  it  became  a  royal  garrison,  not  having  taken 
up  arms  for  the  king,  as  the  students  of  those  days  gen- 
erally did.  In  1649,  after  the  garrison  delivered  up 
Oxford  to  the  Parliamentary  forces,  he  returned  to 
Magdalen  Hall,  and  was  created  Bachelor  of  Physic  on 
the  Pembrokean  creation,  when  Lord  Pembroke  became 
Chancellor  of  the  University,  and  honorary  degrees 
were  conferred.  This  was  in  April  1648.  He  had  not 
previously  taken  any  degree  in  arts.  He  then,  on  sub- 
mitting to  the  authority  of  the  visitors  appointed  by  the 
Parliament,  was  made  by  them  (at  the  intercession  of  a 
relative)  Fellow  of  All  Souls,  in  the  room  of  one  of  the 
many  ejected  Royalists.  He  continued  for  some  years 
earnestly  prosecuting  his  profession,  and  left  Oxford 
without  taking  any  other  degree.  He  was  also,  accord- 
ing to  his  own  account,  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Gould,  fellow- 
commoner  of  Wadham  College  in  the  year  Oxford  sur- 
rendered. It  is  not  easy  to  understand  why  he  went  to 
Wadham,  as  he  was  not  a  fellow  but  a  fellow-commoner 

—  equivalent  to  a  gentleman-commoner  in  Cambridge 

—  unless  it  was  that,  on  returning  to  Magdalen  Hall, 
he  found  himself,  as  a  Parliamentarian,  more  at  home 
in  Wadham  —  where  the  then  head  was  John  Wilkins, 
Cromwell's  brother-in-law  —  a  man  of  genius  and  of  a 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  107 

keen  scientific  spirit,  and  afterwards  and  still  famous  as 
Bishop  of  Chester  —  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Royal 
Society,  which  first  met  at  Oxford ;  and  author,  among 
other  works,  of  a  discourse  on  a  Universal  Language 
and  of  an  Inquiry  as  to  the  best  Way  of  Travelling  to  the 
Moon  ;  a  man  of  rare  parts  and  worth,  and  of  a  liberal- 
ity in  religion  and  science  then  still  rarer,  being,  accord- 
ing to  Anthony  Wood,  an  "  excellent  mathematician  and 
experimentist,  and  one  as  well  seen  in  the  new  philoso- 
phy as  any  of  his  time ;  such  a  man  would  be  sure  to 
cordialize  with  Sydenham,  who  was  of  the  Baconian  or 
genuine  Empiric  school ;  and  who,  in  the  '  new  philos- 
ophy,' saw  the  day-spring  of  all  true  scientific  progress. 
It  is  not  clear  when  Sydenham  settled  in  London,  or 
more  properly  speaking  in  Westminster ;  it  certainly 
was  before  1661.  In  1663  he  was  admitted  a  licentiate 
of  the  College  of  Physicians  of  London,  he  never  was  a 
fellow ;  his  degree  of  doctor  of  medicine  was  taken  at 
Cambridge  in  1676,  long  after  he  was  in  full  practice, 
his  college  being  Pembroke  ;  his  diploma  is  signed  by 
Isaac  Barrow.  His  reason  probably  for  taking  a  Cam- 
bridge degree  may  have  been  that  his  eldest  son  was  a 
pensioner  at  that  college. 

"  Sydenham's  elder  brother,  William,  was  a  distin- 
guished soldier  and  politician  during  the  Commonwealth. 
This,  along  with  his  own  likings,  and  his  love  of  the 
new  philosophy,  prevented  him  during  the  reigns  of  the 
second  Charles  and  James,  from  enjoying  court  favour. 
It  has  often  been  doubted  whether  Sydenham  actually 
served  in  the  army  of  the  Parliament ;  but  from  an 
anecdote  known  generally  as  Dr.  Lettsom's,  but'  which 
appears  first  in  a  curious  old  controversial  book  by  Dr. 
Andrew  Brown,  the  Vindicatory  Schedule,  published 


108  LOCKE  AND  SYDEXH All- 

two  years  after  Sydenham's  death,  it  is  made  quite  cer- 
tain that  he  did. 

"  Before  settling  in  London  he  seems,  on  the  authority 
of  Desault,  to  have  visited  Montpellier,  and  to  have  at- 
tended the  lectures  of  the  famous  Barbeyrac.  After 
this  he  devoted  himself  to  his  profession,  and  became 
the  greatest  physician  of  his  time,  in  spite  of  the  court, 
and  of  the  College  of  Physicians ;  by  one  of  whose  fel- 
lows —  Lister  —  he  was  called  '  a  miserable  quack.'  He 
suffered  for  many  of  the  later  years  of  his  life  from 
the  gout,  his  description  of  which  has  become  classical, 
and  died  in  his  house,  Pail-Mall  —  or  as  he  spells  it, 
Pell-Mell — in  1689.  He  lies  buried  in  St.  James's, 
Westminster,  with  the  following  noble  because  trtie  in- 
scription :  — '  Prope  hunc  locum  sepultus  est  Tliomas 
Sydenham,  medicus  in  omne  aevum,  nobilis,  natus  erat 
A.  D.  1624:  vixit  annos  65.'  His  works,  which  be- 
came rapidly  popular  during  his  lifetime,  and  to  an 
extraordinary  extent  soon  after  his  death  —  there  were 
upwards  of  twenty-five  editions  in  less  than  a  hundred 
years  —  consist  chiefly  of  occasional  pieces,  extorted 
from  him  by  his  friends,  and  often  in  the  form  of  let- 
ters ;  none  of  them  are  formal  treatises,  and  all  are 
plainly  the  result  of  his  own  immediate  reflection  and 
experience.  One  is  greatly  struck  at  the  place  he  oc- 
cupies in  the  writings  of  all  the  great  medical  authors 
at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  and  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  centuries.  Morton,  Willis,  Boerhaave,  Gau- 
bius,  Bordeu,  etc.,  always  speak  of  him  as  second  in 
sagacity  to  '  the  divine  Hippocrates '  alone.  Boerhaave 
never  mentioned  him  in  his  class  without  lifting  his  hat, 
and  called  him  Anglice  lumen,  artis  Phoebum,  veram  Hip- 
pocratici  viri  speciem.  His  simple,  manly  views  of  the 


LOCKE   AND   SYDENHAM.  109 

nature  and  means  of  medicine  as  an  art  seem  to  hate 
come  upon  the  profession  like  revelations ;  it  was  as  if 
the  men  in  Plato's  cavern,  who  had  been  all  their  lives 
with  their  backs  to  the  light,  studying  their  own  shad- 
ows, had  suddenly  turned  round  and  gazed  on  the  broad 
face  of  the  outer  world,  lying  in  sunshine  before  them. 

"All  Sydenham's  works  are  in  Latin,  and  though 
from  his  education  and  tastes,  and  the  habits  of  his  time, 
and  also  from  the  composition  of  the  Processus  Integri 
—  brief  notes  left  by  him  for  his  sons'  use,  and  published 
after  his  death  —  there  is  little  doubt  he  could  have 
written  them  in  that  tongue,  there  seems  every  likeli- 
hood that  he  was  assisted  in  doing  so  by  his  friends  Drs 
Mapletoft  and  Havers.  There  are  three  English  trans- 
lations —  one  by  Dr.  Pechey,  another  by  Dr.  Swan,  to 
which  is  prefixed  a  life  by  Samuel  Johnson,  among  his 
earliest  performances,  and  published  by  Cave,  and  the 
last,  the  Sydenham  Society's  edition,  by  Dr.  Latham." 

The  following  hitherto  unpublished  letters  I  had  the 
good  fortune  to  find  in  the  British  Museum.  The  first 
must  have  been  written  two  months  later  than  the  one 
quoted  at  page  50,  and  relsrs  to  the  same  subjects :  — 

LETTEK   FROM  JOHN  LOCKE   TO   DR.   MAPLETOFT. 

Paris,  9f£  Aug.  1677. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  I  had  noe  sooner  don  my  letter  on  the  other 
side,  but  I  found  it  answered  by  yours  of  July  25,  and  though 
it  hath  satisfied  me  that  you  are  very  well,  and  given  me 
new  proofs  that  you  are  very  much  my  friend,  yet  it  hath 
put  new  doubts  into  me,  and  methinkes  I  see  you  going  to 
loose  yourself.  I  will  say  noe  worse  of  it,  not  knowing  how 
far  the  matter  is  gon,  else  I  would  aske  you  whether  the 


110  LOCKE   AND   SYDEXHAM. 

men,  young,  old,  or  middle  aged,  each  of  which  is  sure  to 
meet  you  with  the  homes  of  a  dilemma.  I  see  you  are, 
whatever  you  think,  hot  upon  the  scent.;  and  if  you  have 
noething  else  to  defend  you,  but  those  maxims  you  build  on, 
I  feare  the  chase  will  lead  you  where  yourself  will  be  caught. 
For  be  as  grave  and  steady  as  you  please,  resolve  as  much 
as  you  will,  never  to  goe  out  of  your  way  or  pace,  for  never 
an  hey  trony  nony  whatsoever,  you  are  not  one  jot  the  safer 
for  all  this  steadiness.  For,  believe  it,  sir,  this  sorte  of 
game  having  a  designe  to  be  caught,  will  hunt  just  at  the 
pursuer's  rate,  and  will  goe  no  further  before  them  than  will 
just  serve  to  make  you  follow ;  and  let  me  assure  you  upon 
as  good  authority  as  honest  Tom  Bagnall's  that  viuus  vidcns- 
que  pereo,  is  the  lamentable  ditty  of  many  an  honest  gentle- 
man. But  if  you  or  the  Fates  (for  the  poor  Fates  are  still 
to  be  accused  in  the  case),  if  your  mettle  be  up,  and  as  hard 
as  Sir  Fr.  Drake,  you  will  shoot  the  desperate  gulph  ;  yet 
consider  that  though  the  riches  of  Peru  lie  that  way,  how 
will  you  can  endure  the  warme  navigation  of  the  Mare  de 
Zur,  which  all  travellers  assure  us  is  nicknamed  pacificum. 

But  hold,  I  goe  too  far.  All  this,  perhaps,  notwithstand- 
ing your  ancient  good  principles,  will  be  heresie  to  you  by 
that  time  it  comes  to  England,  and  therefore,  I  conjure  you 
by  our  friendship  to  burne  this  as  soon  as  you  have  read  it, 
that  it  may  never  rise  up  in  judgment  against  me. 

I  see  one  is  never  sure  of  one's-self,  and  the  time  may 
come  when  I  may  resigne  myself  to  the  empire  of  the  soft 
sex,  and  abominate  myself  for  these  miserable  errors.  How- 
ever, as  the  matter  now  stands,  I  have  discharged  my  con- 
science, and  pray  do  not  let  me  suffer-for  it.  For  I  know 
your  lovers  are  a  sort  of  people  that  are  bound  to  sacrifice 
everything  to  your  mistresses.  But  to  be  serious  with  you, 
if  your  heart  does  hang  that  way,  I  wish  you  good  luck. 
May  Hymen  be  as  kinde  to  you  as  ever  he  was  to  anybody, 
and  then,  I  am  sure,  you  will  be  much  happier  than  any  for- 
lorne  batchelor  can  be.  If  it  be  like  to  be,  continue  your 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  Ill 

care  of  my  interest  in  the  case  (to  get  him  his  chair  in  Gres« 
ham),  and  remember  it  is  for  one  that  knows  how  to  value 
the  quiet  and  retirement  you  are  going  to  quit.  You  have 
no  more  to  do  for  me  than  lovers  use  to  doe  upon  their  own 
account,  viz.,  keepe  the  matter  as  secret  and  private  as  you 
can,  and  then  when  it  is  ripe  and  resolved,  give  me  but  no- 
tice and  I  shall  quickly  be  with  you,  for  it  is  by  your  direc- 
tions I  shall  better  governe  my  motives  than  by  the  flights 
of  thrushes  and  fieldfares. 

Some  remains  of  my  cough,  and  something  like  a  charge 
is  fallen  into  my  hands  lately  here,  will,  if  noething  else 
happen,  keepe  me  out  probably  longer  than  the  time  you 
mention.  But  not  knowing  whether  the  aire  of  France  will 
ever  quite  remove  my  old  companion  or  noe,  I  shall  neglect 
that  uncertainty  upon  the  consideration  of  soe  comfortable 
an  importance;  and  for  the  other  affaire  I  have  here,  if  you 
please  to  let  me  hear  from  you  sometimes  how  matters  are 
like  to  goe,  I  shall  be  able  to  order  that  enough  to  come  at 
the  time  you  shall  thinke  seasonable.  Whatever  happens, 
I  wish  you  all  the  happiness  of  one  or  t'  other  condition.  — 
I  am  perfectly,  dear  Sir,  your  most  humble  and  obedient 
servant. 

To  DK.  MAPLETOFT,  at  Gresliam  College. 

In  the  same  MS.  volume  in  which  I  found  this  letter, 
is  a  case-book  of  Locke's  in  his  own  neat  hand,  written 
in  Latin  (often  slovenly  and  doggish  enough),  and  which 
shows,  if  there  were  any  further  need,  that  he  was  in 
active  practice  in  1667.  The  title  in  the  Museum  yol- 
ume  is  "  Original  Medical  Papers  by  John  Locke,  pre- 
sented by  Wm.  Seward,  Esq. ; "  and  its  contents  are  — 

1.  Hy drops. 

2.  Rheumatismus. 

3.  Hydrops. 

4.  Febris  Inflammatoria. 


112  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

To  us  now  it  seems  curious  to  think  of  the  author  of 
the  Essay  on  Human  Understanding  recording  all  the 
aches  and  doses,  and  minute  miseries  of  an  ancilla  culi- 
naria  virgo,  and  to  find  that  after  a  long  and  anxious 
case  he  was  turned  06*,  when,  as  he  says,  his  impatient 
patient  olio  advocato  medico  erumpsit  (!) 

The  copy  of  a  Letter  of DR.  THO.  SYDENHAM  to  DR.  GOULD, 
the  original  of  which  was  communicated  to  me  by  DR.  MEAD, 
Octob.  1,  1743. 

SIR, — I  conceive  that  the  Salivation,  though  raised  by 
Mercury,  in  your  variolous  Patient  doeth  noe  more  centra- 
indicate  the  giving  of  Paregoricke,  than  if  the  same  had 
come  on  of  its  own  accord  in  a  confluent  Pox  ;  and  therefore 
it  will  be  convenient  for  you  to  give  him  every  night  such  a 
quieting  medicine  as  this  :  B  Hy  Cerasor  nigrorum  §ii,  and 
gut  xiiii :  Syr  de  Mecon  ^ ss-  But  if  it  shall  hap- 
pen, y*  the  Mercury  shall  at  any  time  exert  its  operation  by 
stooles,  you  may  repeat  it  oftener  as  there  should  be  occa- 
sion, after  the  same  manner  as  it  ought  to  be  don.  In  the 
first  Days  of  Mercuriall  Unctions  where  when  Diarrhoea 
comes  on,  there  is  noe  course  so  proper  as  to  turn  the  opera- 
tion of  the  Mercury  upwards,  and  thereby  cause  a  laudable 
salivation  as  y"  giving  of  Laudanum  till  the  Looseness  is 
stopt. 

As  to  what  you  are  pleassed  to  mention  concerning  success, 
which  yourself  and  others  have  had  in  the  trying  of  ray 
Processus,  I  can  only  say  this,  that  I  have  bin  very  careful 
to  write  nothing  but  what  was  the  product  of  careful  obser- 
vation, soe  when  the  scandall  of  my  person  shall  be  layd 
aside  in  my  grave,  it  will  appear  that  I  neither  suffered  my- 
selfe  to  be  deceived  by  indulging  to  idle  speculations,  nor 
have  deceived  others  by  obtruding  anything  to  them  but 
downright  matter  of  fact.  Be  pleased  to  doe  me  the  favour 
to  give  my  humble  service  to  Mr.  Vice- Chancellor  your 
warden,  whose  father,  Bp.  of  Bristoll,  was  my  intimate 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  113 

friend  and  countryman.  I  myself  was  once  a  fellow-com- 
moner of  your  house  (Wadham  College,  Oxford),  but  how 
long  since  I  would  be  glad  to  know  from  you,  as  I  remember 
it  was  in  the  year  Oxford  surrendered,  though  I  had  one  of 
Magdalen  Hall  some  time  before. 

THOMAS  SYDENHAM. 
PELL  MELL,  Deer.  10,  1667. 

There  is  interesting  matter  in  this  letter  besides  its 
immediate  subjects,  and  some  things,  I  rather  think,  un- 
known before  of  Sydenham's  College  life.  It  is  the  only 
printed  bit  of  English  by  its  author,  except  a  letter  to 
the  Honourable  Robert  Boyle,  quoted  in  Latham's  Life. 


"  The  real  physician  is  the  one  who  cures  :  the  obser- 
vation, which  does  not  teach  the  art  of  healing,  is  not 
that  of  a  physician,  it  is  that  of  a  naturalist."  —  Brous- 
sais. 


NOTE  A.  — P.  45. 

LORD      GRENVILLE. 

THE  reader,  we  are  sure,  will  not  be  impatient  of  the  following  ex- 
tracts from  Lord  Grenville's  Tract,  entitled  Oxford  and  Locke,  already 
mentioned.  It  is  now  rare,  and  is  not  likely  to  be  ever  reprinted  sep- 
arately. It  would  not  be  easy  to  imagine  anything  more  thoroughly  or 
more  exquisitely  done  than  this  tract  ;  it  is  of  itself  ample  evidence  of 
the  accuracy  of  Lord  Brougham's  well-known  application  to  its  author 
of  Cicero's  words  :  —  "  Erant  in  eo  plurimce  literas,  nee  ece  vulgares  sed 
interiores  qucedam  et  reconditce,  divina  memoria,  summa  rerborum 
gravitas  et  elegantia,  atque  hcec  omnla  vitce  decorabut  diynitas  et  integ- 
ritas.  Quantum  pond  us  in  verbis!  Quam  nlhil  non  consideratum,  exi- 
bat  ex  ore  !  Sileamus  de  illo  ni  7ugeamus  dolorem." 

Our  extracts  are  from  the  First  Chapter,  "  Of  Locke's  Medical 
Studies:"  — 

8 


114  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

"  In  the  printed  Life  of  Locke,  commonly  prefixed  to  his  works,  we 
are  told  that  he  applied  himself  at  the  university  with  great  diligence 
to  the  study  of  medicine,  'not  with  any  design  of  practising  as  a 
physician,  but  principally  for  the  benefit  of  his  own  constitution,  which 
was  but  weak.'  The  self-taught  scholar,  says  the  Italian  proverb,  has 
an  ignorant  master;  and  the  patient  who  prescribes  for  himself,  has 
not  often,  I  believe,  a  very  wise  physician.  No  such  purpose  is  as- 
cribed to  Locke  by  Le  Clerc,  from  whom  our  knowledge  of  his  private 
history  is  principally  derived.  Nor  can  we  believe  that  such  a  man 
chose  for  himself  in  youth  that  large  and  difficult  study,  with  no  view 
to  the  good  of  others,  but  meaning  it  to  begin  and  end  only  with  the 
care  of  his  own  health. 

"  From  the  very  first  dawn  of  reviving  letters  to  the  present  mo- 
ment, there  never  has  been  a  period  in  this  country,  when  the  great 
masters  of  medicine  among  us  have  not  made  manifest  the  happy  in- 
fluence of  that  pursuit  on  the  cultivation  of  all  the  other  branches  of 
philosophy.  And  accordingly  we  find,  that  while  Locke  was  still 
proceeding,  as  it  is  termed,  in  the  academical  course  of  that  noble  sci- 
ence, he  was  already  occupied  in  laying  the  foundations  of  the  Essay 
on  the  Human  Understanding,  which,  as  we  learu  from  Le  Clerc, 
was  commenced  in  1670. 

"  Mr.  Stewart  thinks  it  matter  of  praise  to  Locke,  that  in  that  work 
'not  a  single  passage,'  he  says,  'occurs,  savouring  of  the  Anatomical 
Theatre,  or  of  the  Chemical  Laboratory.'  This  assertion  is  not  to  be 
too  literally  taken.  Certainly  no  trace  of  professional  pedantry  is  to 
be  found  in  that  simple  and  forcible  writer.  He  had  looked  abroad 
into  all  the  knowledge  of  his  time,  and  in  his  unceasing  endeavors  to 
make  his  propositions  and  his  proofs  intelligible  and  perspicuous  to 
all.  he  delighted  to  appeal  to  every  topic  of  most  familiar  observation. 
Among  these  some  reference  to  medical  science  could  scarcely  have 
been  avoided.  Nor  has  it  been  entirely  so.  Mr.  Stewart  himself  has 
elsewhere  noticed  Locke's  '•homely'  illustration  of  the  nature  of  sec- 
ondary qualities,  by  the  operation  of  manna  on  the  human  body.  A 
more  pleasing  example  of  medical  allusion  is  to  be  found  in  one  of  the 
many  passages  where  Locke  points  out  to  us  how  often  men  whose 
opinions  substantially  agree,  are  heard  wrangling  about  the  names  and 
watchwords  of  parties  and  sects,  to  which  they  respectively  attach 
quite  different  significations.  He  tells  us  of  a  meeting  of  physicians, 
at  which  he  himself  was  present.  These  ingenious  and  learned  men 
debated  long,  he  says,  '  whether  any  liquor  passed  through  the  fila- 
ments of  the  nerves,'  until  it  appeared,  on  mutual  explanation,  that 
they  all  admitted  the  passage  of  some  fluid  and  subtle  matter  through 
those  channels,  and  had  been  disputing  only  whether  or  not  it  should 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  115 

be  called  a  liquor,  '  which,  when  considered,  they  thought  not  worth 
contending  about.' 

"  In  his  Letters  on  Toleration,  and  in  his  Essay  on  the  Conduct  of 
the  Understanding,  his  two  most  valuable,  because  most  practical 
works,  he  indulges  much  more  freely  in  such  allusions.  It  is  fre- 
quently by  their  aid  that,  in  the  first  of  those  admirable  productions, 
he  ridicules  his  unequal  adversary's  project  of  enforcing  universal  con 
formity  by  moderate  and  lenient  persecution.  In  one  place  he  com- 
pares him  to  a  surgeon  using  his  knife  on  the  sick  and  sound  alike,  on 
bad  subjects  and  on  good,  without  their  consent,  but,  as  he  assures 
them,  always  solely  for  their  own  advantage ;  and  in  another  place  to 
an  empiric,  prescribing,  says  Locke,  his  ''hiera  picra'  (HIS  HOLT 
BiTTEits),  to  be  taken  in  such  doses  only  as  shall  be  sufficient  for  the 
cure,  without  once  inquiring  in  what  quantities  of  that  poisonous  drug 
such  sufficiency  is  at  all  likely  to  be  found.  Again,  we  find  him  illus- 
trating in  a  similar  way  the  proper  conduct  to  be  pursued  by  a  mind 
devoting  itself  in  any  case  to  a  genuine  search  for  truth.  A  diligent 
and  sincere,  a  close  and  unbiased  examination,  he  powerfully  insists 
upon  as  '  the  surest  and  safest '  method  for  that  purpose.  Would  not 
this,  he  asks,  be  the  conduct  of  a  student  in  medicine  wishing  to  ac- 
quire just  notions  of  that  science,  'or  of  the  doctrines  of  Hippocrates, 
or  any  other  book  in  which  he  conceived  the  whole  art  of  physic  to  be 
infallibly  contained  ?'  These,  and  many  other  passages  of  a  like  de- 
scription, are  beauties,  surely,  not  blemishes,  in  Locke's  powerful  com- 
position and  certainlv  in  no  decree  less  valuable,  for  bearing  some 
tincture  of  the  current  in  which  that  great  man's  thoughts  and  studies 
had  been  so  long  carried  forward." 

This  Hiera  Picra  still  survives  under  the  name  of  Hickery  Pickery; 
and  appears  in  the  London  Pharmacopeia  of  1650,  as  thus  com- 
posed :  — 

R  Cinnamon. 

Lignum  aloes. 
Asarum  root. 
Spikenard. 
Mastick. 

Saffron,  aa.  3vj. 
Aloes  (unwashed)  3xijss. 
Clarified  honey,  Ibiv.  3  iij. 
Mix.  —  Ft.  elect,  sec.  art. 


116  LOCKE  AND  SYDEXHAM. 


NOTE  B.  —  P.  82. 

THE  WISDOM   OF  DOING   NOTHING. 

The  reader  will  mark  the  coincidence  of  thought,  and  even  txpres- 
sion,  between  Locke  and  his  friend:  — 

"I  commend  very  much  the  discretion  of  Mrs.  Furley,  t!-at  she 
would  not  give  him  precipitates  —  1°.  Because  physick  is  not  to  be 
given  to  children  upon  every  little  disorder.  2°.  Physick  for  the  worms 
is  not  to  be  given  upon  every  bare  suspicion  that  there  may  be  worms. 
3°.  If  it  were  evident  that  he  had  worms,  such  dangerous  medicines 
are  not  to  be  given  till  after  the  use  of  other  and  more  gentle  and  safe 
remedys.  If  he  continue  still  dull  and  melancholy,  the  best  way  is  to' 
have  him  abroad  to  walke  with  you  every  day  in  the  air  ;  that,  I 
believe,  may  set  him  right  without  any  physic,  at  least  if  it  should 
not,  't  is  not  fit  to  give  him  remedys  till  one  has  well  examined  what 
is  the  distemper,  unless  you  think  (as  is  usually  doune),  that  at  all 
hazard  something  is  to  be  given  ;  a  way,  I  confess,  I  could  never 
thinke  reasonable,  i',  being  better  in  my  opinion  to  doe  no  tkit-j,  than 
to  doe  amiss."  —  Locke  to  Furley  in  Forster. 


NOTE  C.  —P.  95. 

THE  ELDER  SERVING   THE  YOUNGER. 

BORDEU  puts  this  Avell,  in  his  candid,  lively,  and  shrewd  wny.  The 
whole  passage  is  full  of  his  peculiar  humor  and  sense.  Boioeu  was 
in  many  respects  a  sort  of  French  Sydenham,  like  and  uiilik*,  as  a 
Frenchman  is  like  and  unlike  an  Englishman.  He  was  him°i>lf,  to 
use  his  own  phrase,  one  "  des  m<klecins  les  plus  senses."  It  is  no  ijood 
sign  of  our  medical  tastes  that  he  is  so  little  known. 

"  Les  Serane,  pere  et  fils,  e"toient  mddecins  de  Phopital  de  Montpel 
lier.  Le  fils  e'toit  un  the'oricien  Idger,  qui  savoit  par  coeur  et  qui  redi- 
soit  continuellement  tous  les  dccamens  de  1'inflammation,  comme  ces 
enfans  qui  vous  re'petent  sans  cesse  et  avec  des  airs  plus  ou  moins  ni- 
ais,  La  cigale  ayant  cliante  tout  I'ete,  etc.,  Mattre  corbeausur  un  arbre 
perche,  etc.  Serane  pere  e'toit  un  bon  homme  qui  avoit  &£  instruit  par 
de  giands  maitres.  II  avoit  appris  ii  trailer  les  fluxions  de  poitrine 
avec  1'eme'tique  ;  il  le  donnoit  pour  le  moins  tous  les  deux  jours,  avec 
ou  sans  1'addition  de  deux  onces  de  manne.  C'etoit  son  grand  cheval 
de  bataille.  Je  le  lui  ai  vu  lacher  plus  de  mille  fois,  et  partout  et  pour 
tout.  Le  fils  se  proposa  de  convertir  le  pere  et  ie  le  mettre  a  la  mode ; 


LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM.  117 

c'est-a-dire,  lui  faire  craindre  la  phlogose,  Yere'tisme,  les  de"chirures  des 
petits  vaisseaux.  Le  cher  pere  tomba  dans  une  espece  d' indecision 
singuliere:  il  ne  savoit  oil  donner  de  la  tete.  II  tenoit  pourtant  ferme 
contri  la  saigne'e;  inais  lorsqu'il  etoit  aupres  d'un  malade,  il  munnu- 
roit  ot  s'en  alloit  sans  rien  ordonner.  Jc  1'ai  vu  a  plusieurs  reprises, 
apostroplier  son  fils  avec  vivacite"  et  lui  crier,  lorsqu'il  auroit  voulu 
donner  reme'lique,  Men  Jil,  m'abes  yastat !  (Mon  Jils,  vous  m'avez 
gate!)  Jainais  cette  scene  singuliere  ne  sortira  de  ma  memoire.  Je 
lui  ai  biiju  de  1'obligation,  et  les  malades  de  1'liopital  lui  avoient  aussi 
beaucoup.  Us  guerissoient  sans  e"tre  presque  saigne's,  parce  que  le  vieux 
Serane,  n'aimoit  pas  la  saigntfe  :  et  sans  prendre  l'(;me'tique  parce  que 
le  jeune  Serane  avoit  prouve'  a  sou  pere  que  ce  remede  augmente  1'ia- 
flaminatiou.  Les  malades  guerissoient,  et  j'en  faisois  mon  profit.  J'en 
concluois  que  les  saignt5ss  que  Ssrane  le  fils  multiplioit  lorsqu'il  etoit 
seul,  etoient  tout  au  nioins  aussi  inutiles  que  1'emctique  re'ite're'  auquel 
Serane  le  pere  etoit  trop  attache.  D'apres  cette  aventure  (jointe  a 
celle  que  je  viens  de  rapporter,  et  ii  plusieurs  autres  de  la  meme  espece), 
je  cms  voir  bien  sensiblement,  et  je  me  crois  aujourd'hui  en  droit  de 
publier,  qu'on  multiplie  trop  les  remedes  et  que  les  meilleurs  de- 
viennent  perfides  a  force  de  les  presser.  Cette  profusion  de  medicamens 
rend  la  maladie  m^connoissable,  et  forme  un  obstacle  sensible-a  la 
gue'rison.  La  f ureur  de  trailer  les  maladies  en  faisant  prendre  drogues 
sur  drogues  ayant  gagn^  les  tetes  ordinaire?,  les  mt!decius  sont  au- 
jourd'hui plus  n</cessaires  pour  les  empecher  et  les  de'fendre,  que  pour 
les  ordouner.  Les  pratiques  nationales,  les  observations  des  mddecina 
les  plus  sense':?,  se  ressentent  plus  ou  moins  du  penchant  invincible 
qu'ont  les  hommes  a  donner  la  preference  4  de  certaines  id^es,  sur 
d'autres,  tout  aussi  bien  fonde'es  que  celles  qu'ils  preferent.  Je  le  d^- 
clare  sans  passion,  et  avec  la  modestie  a  laquelle  mes  foibles  connois 
sauces  me  condamnent  ;  lorsque  je  regarde  derriere  moi,  j'ai  hont« 
d'avoir  taut  insiste",  tantot  sur  les  saignees,  tantot  sur  les  purgatifs  et 
les  e'metiques.  Tons  les  axiomes  rappek!s  ci-dessus,  et  dont  on  abuse 
tous  les  jours,  sont  detruits  par  de  beaucoup  plus  vrais,  et  malheureuse- 
meiit  trop  peu  connus.  II  me  semble  entendre  crier  la  Nature  :  '  Ne 
vous  pressez  point  ;  laissez-moi  faire  ;  vos  drogues  ne  gudrissent 
point,  surtout  lorsque  vous  les  entassez  dans  le  corps  des  malades;  c'est 
moi  seule  qui  gueris.  Les  momens  qui  vous  paroissent  les  plus  ora- 
geux  sont  ceux  oil  je  me  sauve  le  mieux,  si  vous  ne  m'avez  pas  6te" 
mes  forces.  II  vaut  mieux  que  vous  m'abandonniez  toute  la  besogne 
que  d'essayer  des  remedes  douteux.' 

"Un  hasard  heureux  commen9a  a  mod^rer  en  moi  le  brulant  d^sir 
d'instrumenter,  ou  tie  faire  voir  aux  assistans  ^bahis  et  aux  malades 
eux-ruemes,  la  cause  de  la  maladie  dans  un  grand  etalage  de  palettes 


118  LOCKE  AND   SYDENHAM. 

et  de  bassins.  J'e*tois  fort  jeune  encore,  et  le  quatrieme  m<5decin  d'un 
malade  attaque  de  la  tievre,  de  la  douleur  de  cot^  et  du  crachement  de 
sang  ;  je  n'avois  point  d'avis  ii  donner.  Vja.  des  trois  consultans  pro- 
posa  une  troisieme  saigne'e  (c'etoit  le  troisieme  jour  de  la  maladie);  le 
second  proposa  Te'me'tique  combine  avec  un  purgatif ;  et  le  troisieme, 
un  ve'sicatoire  aux  jambes.  Le  de'bat  ne  fut  pas  petit,  et  personne  ne 
voulut  ce"der.  J'aurois  jure"  qu'ils  avoient  tons  raison.  Enfin,  on  aura 
peine  a  croire  que  par  une  suite  de  circonstances  inutiles  u  rapporter, 
cette  dispute  inteYessa  cinq  ou  six  nombreuses  families,  partagdes 
comme  les  me"decins,  et  qui  prdtendoient  s'emparer  du  malade  ;  ella 
dura,  en  un  mot,  jusques  passe1  le  septieme  de  la  maladie.  Cependant, 
malgre'  les  terribles  menaces  de  mes  trois  maitres,  le  malade  reduit  a 
la  boisson  et  a  la  diete  gudrit  tres-bien.  Je  suivis  cette  gulrison  parce 
que  j'e"tois  reste"  seul:  je  la  trouvai  trace'e  par  I'e'cole  de  Cos,  et  je 
m' Serial,  c'etoit  done  la  route  qu'il  falloit  prendre!  "  — Recherches  sur 
le  Tiissu  Muyueux,  1767. 


BOOKS   CONSULTED. 

1.  Bibliotheqne  Choise,  tome  vi.  :  1716. — 2.  Oxford  and  Locke; 
by  Lord  Grenville:  London,  1829.  —  3.  Life  of  John  Locke;  b}-  Lord 
King.  —  4.  Original  Letters  of  John  Locke,  Algernon  Sidney,  and 
Lord  Shaftesbury  ;  edited  by  T.  Forster  ;  2d  edition :  London,  privately 
printed,  1847.  —  5.  Ward's  Lives  of  the  Professors  of  Gresham  Col- 
lege.—  G.  Thomse  Sydenham,  M.  D.,  Opera  omnia;  edidit  G  A 
Greenhill,  M.  D. :  Londini,  impensis  Societatis  Sydenhamianae,  1844. 
—  7.  The  Works  of  Thomas  Sydenham,  M.  D. ;  with  a  Life  of  the 
Author;  by  R.  G.  Latham,  M.  D.,  2  vols. :  printed  for  the  Sydenham 
Society.  —  8.  MSS.  Letters  and  Common-place  Books  of  Jolm  Locke, 
in  the  possession  of  the  Earl  of  Lovelace. 


DR.  ANDREW   COMBE. 


"...  Valetudinis  conservationem,  qua  sine  dubio  primum  est  hujus 
mice  bonum,  et  cceterorum  omnium  fundamentum.  Animus  enim  adeb 
a  temperamento  et  organorum  corporis  dispositione  pendet,  ut  si  ratio 
aliqua  j)ossit  inveniri,  quce  homines  saj)ientiores  et  ingeniosiores  reddat 
quam  hactenus  fuerunt,  credam  illam  in  Afedicind  quteri  debere." — 
RENATUS  DESCAKTES  De  Methodo,  vi. 

"  Ovid  observes  that  there  are  morejine  days  than  cloudy  ones  in  the 

year  — 

'  Si  numeres  anno  soles  et  nubUa  toto, 
Invenies  nitidum  scepius  esse  diem.' 

It  may  be  said  likewise,  that  the  days  wherein  men  enjoy  their  health 
are  in  greater  number  than  those  wherein  they  are  sick.  But  there  is 
perhaps  as  much  misery  in  fj 'teen  days'  sickness,  as  there  is  pleasure 
in  fifteen  years'  health."  —  BAYLE,  under  the  word  PERICLES. 

"  Evnt  homines  mirari  altu  montium,  ingentes  Jiuctus  marls,  altissi- 
mos  lapsus  fluminum,  oceani  ambitum  et  gyros  siderum  —  seipsos  relin- 
quunt  nee  admirantur."  —  ST.  AUSTIN. 


DE.  ANDREW  COMBE. 

E  do  not  know  a  worthier  subject  for  an  essay 
in  one  of  our  larger  Medical  Journals,  than  to 
determine  the  just  position  of  such  a  man  as 
Dr.  Combe  in  the  history  of  Medicine — -showing  what 
it  was  in  theory  and  in  practice,  in  its  laws  as  a  science, 
and  in  its  rules  as  an  art  —  when  he  made  his  appear- 
ance on  its  field,  and  what  impression  his  character  and 
doctrines  have  made  upon  the  public  as  requiring,  and 
upon  his  brethren  as  professing  to  furnish,  the  means 
of  health.  The  object  of  such  an  essay  would  be  to 
make  out  how  far  Dr.  Combe's  principles  of  inquiry,  his 
moral  postulates,  his  method  of  cure,  his  views  of  the 
powers  and  range  of  medicine  as  a  science,  estimative, 
rather  than  exact,  his  rationale  of  human  nature  as  com- 
posite and  in  action,  —  how  far  all  these  influences  may 
be  expected  to  affect  the  future  enlargement,  enlighten- 
ment, and  quickening  of  that  art  which  is,  par  excellence, 
the  art  of  life,  —  and  whose  advance,  in  a  degree  of 
which  we  can,  from  its  present  condition,  form  little 
conception,  was  believed  by  one  of  the  greatest  intellects 
of  any  age  (Descartes)  to  be  destined  to  play  a  signal 
part  in  making  mankind  more  moral,  wiser,  and  hap- 
pier, as  well  as  stronger,  longer-lived,  and  healthier. 
The  cause  of  morality  —  of  everything  that  is  connected 
with  the  onward  movement  of  the  race  —  is  more  de- 
pendent upon  the  bodily  health,  upon  the  organic 


122  DR.   ANDREW   COMBE. 

soundness  of  the  human  constitution,  than  many  poli- 
ticians, moralists,  and  divines  seem  ready  to  believe. 

Dr.  Combe  was  not,  perhaps,  what  is  commonly  called 
a  man  of  genius ;  that  is,  genius  was  not  his  foremost 
and  most  signal  and  efficient  quality.  He  made  no  brill- 
iant discovery  in  physiology  or  threapeutics,  like  some 
of  bis  contemporaries.  He  did  not,  as  by  a  sudden  flash 
of  light,  give  form,  and  symmetry,  and  meaning  to  the 
nervous  system,  as  did  Sir  Charles  Bell,  when  he  proved 
that  every  nerve  is  double ;  that  its  sheath,  like  the 
Britannia  Bridge,  contains  two  lines,  carrying  two  trains 
—  an  up  and  a  down  ;  the  sensory,  as  the  up,  bringing 
knowledge  from  without  of  all  sorts  to  the  brain ;  the 
motory,  as  the  down,  carrying  orders  from  the  same 
great  centre  of  sensation  and  will.  Neither  did  he,  like 
Dr.  Marshall  Hall,  render  this  discovery  more  exquisite, 
by  adding  to  it  that  of  the  excito-motor  nerves  —  the 
system  of  reflex  action,  by  which,  with  the  most  curious 
nicety  and  art  (for  Nature  is  the  art  of  God),  each  part 
of  our  frame,  however  distinct  in  function,  different  in 
structure,  and  distant  from  the  others,  may  intercom- 
municate with  any  or  every  part,  as  by  an  electric  mes- 
sage, thus  binding  in  one  common  sympathy  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  the  various  centres  of  organic  and  animal  life 
with  each  other,  and  with  the  imperial  brain.  Neither 
did  he,  as  Laennec,  open  the  ear,  and  through  it  the 
mind  of  the  physician,  to  a  new  discipline,  giving  a 
new  method  and  means  of  knowledge  and  of  cure.  Nor, 
finally,  did  he  enrich  practical  medicine,  as  Dr.  Aber- 
crombie  and  others  have  done,  with  a  selection  of  capi- 
tal facts,  of  "  middle  propositions,"  from  personal  expe- 
rience and  reflection,  and  with  the  matured  results  of  a 
long-exercised  sagacity  and  skill  in  diagnosis  and  in 


DR.   ANDREW  COMBE. 

treatment.     He  did  not  do  all  this  for  various  reasons, 
but   mainly  and  simply  because   his  Maker  had  other 
and  important  work  for  him,  and  constituted  and  fitted 
him  accordingly,  by  a  special  teaching  from  within  and 
from    without,  for  its    accomplishment,  vouchsafing   to 
him  what  is  one  of  God's  best  blessings  to  any  of  his 
creatures  —  an  innate  perception  of  law,  a  love   of  first 
principles,  a  readiness  to  go  wherever  they  lead,  and  no- 
where else.     He  discovered  —  for  to  him  it  had  all  the 
suddenness  of  a  first  sight  —  that  all  the  phenomena  of 
disease,  of  life,  and  of  health,  everything  in  the  entire 
round  of  the  economy  of  man's  microcosm,  move  accord- 
ing to  certain  laws,  and  fixed  modes  of  procedure  —  laws 
which  are  ascertainable  by  those  who  honestly  seek  them, 
and  which,  in  virtue  of  their  reasonableness  and  benefi- 
cence and  their  bearing,  as  it  were,  the  "  image  and  su- 
perscription "  of  their  Divine  Giver,  carry  with  them,  into 
all  their  fields  of  action,  the  double  burden  of  reward  and 
punishment ;   and  that  all  this  is  as  demonstrable  as  the 
law  of  gravitation,  which,   while  it    shivers   an    erring 
planet  in  its  anger,  and  sends  it  adrift  to  "  hideous  ruin 
and  combustion,"  at  the  same  moment,  and  by  the  very 
same  force,  times  the  music  of   the  spheres,  compacts  a 
dew-drop,  and  guides,  as  of  old,  Arcturus  and  his  sons. 
This   is  Dr.  Combe's  highest  —  his  peculiar  distinction 
among  medical  writers.     He  burns,  as  with  a  passionate 
earnestness,  to  bring  back  the  bodily  economy  of   man 
to  its  allegiance  to  the  Supreme  Guide.     He  shows  in 
his  works,  and  still  more  impressively  in  his  living  and 
dying,  the  divine  beauty  and  power  and  goodness  that 
chine  out  in  every,   the  commonest,  and  what  we  call 
meanest  instance,  of  the  adaptation  of  man  by  his  Maker 
to  his  circumstances,  his  duties,  his  sufferings,  and  his 


124  DR.   ANDREW  COMBE. 

destiny.  This  may  not  be  called  original  genius,  per- 
haps ;  we  are  sorry  it  is  as  yet  too  original ;  but  in  the 
calm  eye  of  reason  and  thoughtful  goodness,  and  we 
may  in  all  reverence  add,  in  the  eye  of  the  all-seeing 
Unseen,  it  is  something  more  divinely  fair,  more  to  ber 
desired  and  honored,  than  much  of  what  is  generally 
called  genius.  It  is  something  which,  if  acted  upon  by 
ten  thousand  men  and  women  for  five  and-t\vetity  years, 
with  the  same  simplicity,  energy,  constancy,  and  intelli- 
gence, with  which,  for  half  his  lifetime,  it  animated  Dr. 
Combe,  —  would  so  transform  the  whole  face  of  society, 
and  work  such  mighty  changes  in  the  very  substance,  so 
to  speak,  of  human  nature,  in  all  its  ongoings,  as  would 
as  much  transcend  the  physical  marvels  and  glories  of 
our  time,  and  the  progress  made  thereby  in  civilization 
and  human  wellbeing,  as  the  heavens  are  higher  than  the 
earth,  and  as  our  moral  relations,  our  conformity  to  the 
will  £nd  the  image  of  God  are  —  more  than  any  advance 
in  mere  knowledge  and  power  —  man's  highest  exercise 
and  his  chief  end.  We  are  not  so  foolish  as  to  think 
that  in  recognizing  the  arrangements  of  this  world,  and 
all  it  contains,  as  being  under  God's  law,  Dr.  Combe 
made  a  discovery  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word ;  but 
we  do  say  that  he  unfolded  the  length  and  breadth,  the 
depth  and  height  of  this  principle  as  a  practical  truth, 
as  a  rule  of  life  and  duty,  beyond  any  men  before  him. 
And  thus  it  was,  that  though  he  did  not,  like  the  other 
eminent  men  we  have  mentioned,  add  formally  to  the 
material  of  knowledge,  he  observed  with  his  own  eyes 
more  clearly,  and  explained  the  laws  of  healthy,  and 
through  them,  of  diseased  action,  and  promulgated  their 
certain  rewards  and  punishments  more  convincingly 
than  anyone  else.  He  made  this  plainer  than  othei 


DR.   ANDREW   COMBE,  125 

men,  to  every  honest  capacity,  however  humble.  He 
showed  that  man  has  an  internal,  personal  activity,  im- 
planted in  him  by  his  Creator,  for  preserving  or  re- 
covering that  full  measure  of  soundness,  of  wholeness, 
of  consentaneous  harmonious  action,  of  well-balanced, 
mutually  concurring  forces, —  that  "perfect  diapason," 
which  constitutes  health,  or  wholth,  and  for  the  use  or 
iibuse  of  which  he,  as  a  rational  being,  is  answerable  on 
soul  and  conscience  to  himself,  to  his  fellow-men,  and 
to  his  Maker. 

Dr.  Combe  has  so  beautifully  given  his  own  account 
of  this  state  and  habit  of  mind  and  feeling,  this  princi- 
pled subjection  of  everything  within  him  to  God's  will, 
as  manifested  in  his  works  and  in  his  creatures,  that  we 
quote  it  here. 

"  The  late  Rev.  Mr. of stopped  me  one  day, 

to  say  that  he  had  read  my  Physiology  with  great  satis- 
faction, and  that  what  pleased  him  greatly  was  the  vein 
of  genuine  piety  which  pervaded  every  page,  a  piety 
uucontaminated  by  cant.  Some  of  my  good  friends  who 
have  considered  me  a  lax  observer  of  the  outward  forms 
of  piety,  might  laugh  at  this.  Nevertheless,  it  gave  me 
pleasure,  because  in  my  conscience  I  felt  its  truth. 
There  is  scarcely  a  single  page  in  all  my  three  physiolog- 
ical works,  in  which  such  a  feeling  was  not  active  as  1 
wrote.  The  unvarying  tendency  of  my  mind  is  to  re- 
gard the  whole  laws  of  the  animal  economy,  and  of  the 
universe,  as  the  direct  dictates  of  the  Deity  ;  and  in 
urging  compliance  with  them,  it  is  with  the  earnestness 
and  reverence  due  to  a  Divine  command  that  I  do  it. 
/  almost  lose  the  consciousness  of  self  in  the  anxiety  to 
attain  the  end ;  and  where  I  see  clearly  a  law  of  God 
in  our  own  nature,  I  rely  upon  its  efficiency  for  good 


129  DR.   ANDREW   COMBE. 

with  a  faith  and  peace  which  110  storm  cau  shake,  and 
feel  pity  for  those  who  remain  blind  to  its  origin,  wis- 
dom, and  beneficence.  I  therefore  say  it  solemnly,  and 
with  the  prospect  of  death  at  no  distant  day,  that  I  ex- 
perienced great  delight/when  writing  my  books,  in  the 
consciousness  that  I  was,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  ex- 
pounding 'the  ways  of  God  to  man,'  and  in  so  far 
fulfilling  one  of  the  highest  objects  of  human  existence. 
God  was,  indeed,  ever  present  to  my  thoughts."  —  Life, 
p.  401. 

This  was  the  secret  of  his  power  over  himself  and 
others  —  He  believed  and  therefore  he  spake ;  he  could 
not  but  speak,  and  when  he  did,  it  was  out  of  the  abun- 
dauce  of  his  heart.  Being  impressed  and  moved,  he  be- 
came of  necessity  impressive  and  motive.  Hence  if  there 
be  not  in  his  works  much  of  the  lightning  of  genius, 
resolving  error  into  its  constituent  elements  by  a  stroke, 
unfolding  in  one  glance  both  earth  and  heaven,  and 
bringing  out  in  bright  relief  some  long-hidden  truth  — 
if  he  but  seldom  astonish  us  with  the  full-voiced  thunder 
of  eloquence  ;  there  is  in  his  pages,  everywhere  pervad- 
ing them  as  an  essence,  that  still  small  voice,  powerful 
but  not  by  its  loudness,  which  finds  its  way  into  the 
deeper  and  more  sacred  recesses  of  our  rational  nature, 
and  speaks  to  our  highest  interests  and  senses  —  the 
voice  of  moral  obligation  calling  us  to  gratitude  and  obe- 
dience. His  natural  capacity  and  appetite  for  knowl- 
edge, his  love  of  first  principles,  his  thoughtful  vivacity, 
his  unfeigned  active  benevolence,  his  shrewdness,  his 
affections,  his  moral  courage  and  faithfulness,  his  clear 
definite  ideas,  his  whole  life,  his  very  sufferings,  sor- 
rows, and  regrets,  were  all,  as  by  a  solemn  act  of  his 
entire  nature,  consecrated  to  this  one  absorbing  end. 


DR.   ANDREW   COMBE.  127 

Thus  it  was  that  he  kept  himself  alive  so  long,  with  a 
mortal  malady  haunting  him  for  years,  and  was  enabled 
to  read  to  others  the  lessons  he  had  learned  for  himself 
in  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death. 

We  have  been  struck,  in  reading  Dr.  Combe's  works, 
and  especially  his  Memoir  by  his  brother,  by  the  resem- 
l>lance,  not  merely  in  principles  and  rules,  and  in  the 
point  from  which  they  view  their  relations  to  their  pro- 
fession, but  in  more  special  characteristics  of  tempera- 
ment and  manner,  between  him  and  the  illustrious  Sy- 
deuham,  and  the  still  more  famous  "divine  old  man  of 
Cos."  We  allude  to  the  continual  reference  by  them  to 
Nature,  as  a  regulating  power  in  the  human  body ;  their 
avoiding  speculations  as  to  essence,  and  keeping  to  the 
consideration  of  conjunct  causes  ;  their  regarding  them- 
selves as  the  expounders  of  a  law  of  life,  and  the  inter- 
preters and  ministers  of  Nature.  This  one  master  idea, 
truly  religious  in  its  character,  gives  to  them  a  steady 
fervor,  a  calm  persistent  enthusiasm  or  "entheasm"  (ti/ 
and  ®eos),  which  we  regret,  for  the  honor  and  the  good 
of  human  nature,  is  too  rare  in  medical  literature,  an- 
cient or  modern.  The  words  "  Nature,"  and  "  the  Al- 
mighty," "  the  Supreme  Disposer,"  etc.,  occur  in  Syden- 
ham's  works  as  frequently  and  with  the  same  reference 
as  they  do  in  Dr.  Combe's. 

The  following  passage  from  Sydenham,  on  Nature,  will 
illustrate  our  meaning :  —  "I  here  [in  the  conclusion  of 
his  observations  on  the  fever  and  plague  of  1665  and 
1666]  subjoin  a  short  note,  lest  my  opinion  of  Nature 
be  taken  in  a  wrong  sense.  In  the  foregoing  discourse, 
I  have  made  use  of  the  term  Nature,  and  ascribed  vari- 
ous effects  to  her,  as  I  would  thereby  represent  some 
one  self-existent  being,  everywhere  diffused  throughout 


128  DR.   ANDREW   COMBE. 

the  machine  of  the  universe,  which,  being  endowed  with 
reason,  governs  and  directs  all  bodies  —  such  an  one  as 
some  philosophers  seem  to  have  conceived  the  soul  of 
the  world  to  be.  But  I  neither  affect  novelty  in  my 
sentiments  or  expressions ;  I  have  made  use  of  this  an- 
cient word  in  these  pages,  if  I  mistake  not,  in  a  qualified 
sense ;  for  by  Nature  I  always  mean  a  certain  assem- 
blage of  natural  causes,  which,  though  destitute  of  reason 
and  contrivance,  are  directed  in  the  wisest  manner  while 
they  perform  their  operations  and  produce  their  effects ; 
or,  in  other  words,  the  Supreme  Being,  by  whose  power 
all  things  are  created  and  preserved,  disposes  them  all 
in  such  manner,  by  his  infinite  wisdom,  that  they  pro- 
ceed to  their  appointed  functions  with  a  certain  regular- 
ity and  order,  performing  nothing  in  vain,  but  only 
what  is  best  and  fittest  for  the  whole  frame  of  the  uni- 
verse and  their  own  peculiar  nature,  and  so  are  moved 
like  machines,  not  by  any  skill  of  their  own,  but  by  that 
of  the  artist." 

And  Hippocrates  briefly  says,  "  Nature  in  man  is  the 
aggregate  of  all  things  that  concur  to  perfect  health,  and 
the  foundation  of  all  right  reasoning  and  practice  in 
physic"*  —  exactly  the  same  great  truth  which  Dr. 
Combe  and  Sir  John  Forbes,  thousands  of  years  after- 
wards, are  abused  by  their  brethren  for  proclaiming; 
and  the  old  Ephesian  cry  is  raised  loud  and  long  among 
the  craftsmen,  who,  like  Demetrius  and  his  crew,  are 
less  filled  with  reason  than  with  wrath. 

As  we  have  already  said,  Dr.  Combe  was  distin- 
guished neither  as  a  discoverer  nor  as  a  practitioner. 
Owing  to  feeble  health,  he  was  not  permitted  the  oppor- 
tunity of  being  the  latter,  though  he  possessed  some  of 

i  See  Note,  p.  161. 


DR.    ANDREW   COMBE.  129 

the  highest  qualities  of  a  great  physician ;  and  the  even- 
ness of  his  powers  probably  would  have  prevented  him 
from  making  any  one  brilliant  hit  as  the  former :  for  it 
is  our  notion,  for  which  we  have  not  space  here  to  assign 
the  reasons,  that  original  geniuses  in  any  one  depart- 
ment, are  almost  always  odd1  —  that  is,  are  uneven, 
have  some  one  predominant  faculty  lording  it  over  the 
rest.  So  that,  if  we  look  back  among  the  great  men  in 
medicine,  we  would  say  that  Dr.  Combe  was  less  like 
Harvey,  or  even  Sydenharn,  than  Locke,  who,  though 
nj}t  generally  thought  so,  was  quite  as  much  of  a  physi- 
cian during  his  life,  as  of  a  philosopher  and  politician. 
It  was  not  merely  in  their  deeper  constitutional  qualities 

—  their  love  of  truth,  and  of  the  God  of  truth  —  their 
tendency  towards  what  was  immediately  and  mainly  use- 
ful —  their  preferring  observation   to    speculation,   but 
not  declining  either,  as  the  help  and  complement  of  the 
Other ;  their  choosing  rather  to  study  the  mind  or  body 
as  a  totum  quid,  a  unit,  active  and  executive,  and  as  a 
means  to  an  end,  than  to  dogmatize  and  dream  about  its 
transcendental  constitution,  or  its  primary  and  ultimate 
condition ;  their  valuing  in   themselves,  and  in   others, 
soundness  of  mind  and  body,  above  mere  strength  and 
quickness ;  their  dislike  to  learned  phrases,  and  their  at- 
tachment to  freedom  —  political,  religious,  and  personal 

—  it  was  not  merely  in  these  larger  and  more  substan- 
tial matters  that  John  Locke  and  Andrew  Combe  were 

1  "  "We  usually  say  that  man  is  a  genius,  but  he  has  some  whims 
and  oddities.  Now,  in  such  a  case,  we  would  speak  more  rationally, 
did  we  substitute  therefore  for  but.  He  is  a  genius,  therefore  he  is 
whimsical."  — Dr.  John  Aitkin.  To  be  sure,  it  is  one  thing  to  have 
genius,  and  another  to  be  one,  the  difference  being  between  possessing, 
and  being  possessed  by. 
9 


130  DR.    ANDREW    COMBE. 

alike :  they  had  in  their  outward  circumstances  and  his- 
tories some  curious  coincidences. 

Both  were  grave,  silent,  dark-haired,  and  tall ;  both 
were  unmarried,  both  were  much  in  the  company  of 
women  of  culture,  and  had  much  of  their  best  pleasure 
from  their  society  and  sympathy,  and  each  had  one  of 
the  best  of  her  sex  to  watch  over  his  declining  years, 
and  to  close  his  eyes ;  to  whose  lot  it  fell,  in  the  tender 
words  of  Agricola's  stern  son-in-law  —  "  assidere  valetu- 
dini,fovere  deficientem,  satiari  vul(u,  complexu."  More- 
over, both  were  educated  for  medicine,  but  had  to  relin- 
quish the  active  practice  of  it  from  infirm  health,  and  in 
each  the  local  malady  was  in  the  lungs.  Both,  by  a  sort 
of  accident,  came  in  close  contact  with  men  in  the  highest 
station,  and  were  their  advisers  and  friends  —  we  refer 
to  Lord  Shaftesbury,  and  to  the  Third  William  and  Leo- 
pold, two  of  the  wisest  and  shrewdest  of  ancient  or  mod- 
ern kings.  They  resided  much  abroad,  and  owed,  doubt- 
less, not  a  little  of  their  largeness  of  view,  and  their 
superiority  to  prejudice,  to  having  thus  seen  mankind 
from  many  points.  Both  had  to  make  the  art  of  keeping 
themselves  alive  —  the  study  of  their  health  —  a  daily 
matter  of  serious  thought,  arrangement,  and  action. 
They  were  singularly  free  from  the  foibles  and  preju- 
dices of  invalids;  both  were  quietly  humorous,  playful 
in  their  natures,  and  had  warm  and  deep,  but  not  de- 
monstrative affections  ;  and  to  each  was  given  the  honor 
of  benefiting  their  species  to  a  degree,  and  in  a  variety 
of  ways,  not  easily  estimated.  Locke,  though  he  may 
be  wrong  in  many  of  his  views  of  the  laws  and  opera- 
tions of  the  human  mind,  did  more  than  any  one  man 
ever  did  before  him,  to  strengthen  and  rectify,  and  re- 
etore  to  healthy  vigor,  the  active  powers  of  the  mind 


DR.   ANDREW   COMBE.  131 

—  observation,  reason,  and  judgment ;  and  of  him,  the 
weighty  and  choice  words  of  Lord  Grenville  are  literally 
true  :  "  With  Locke  commenced  the  bright  era  of  a  new 
philosophy,  which,  whatever  were  still  its  imperfections, 
had  for  its  basis  clear  and  determinate  conceptions  ;  free 
inquiry  and  unbiassed  reason  for  its  instruments,  and  for 
its  end  truth,  —  truth  unsophisticated  and  undisguised, 
shedding  its  pure  light  over  every  proper  object  of  the 
human  understanding,  but  confining  itself  with  reveren- 
tial awe  within  those  bounds  which  an  all-wise  Creator 
has  set  to  our  inquiries."    While,  on  the  other  hand,  Dr. 
Combe,  making  the  body  of  man  his  chief  study,  did  for 
it  what  Locke  did  for  the  mind  :  he  explained  the  laws 
of  physiology,  rather  than  the  structure  of  the  organs  ; 
he  was  more  bent  upon  mastering  the  dynamics  than  the 
statics  of  health  and  disease ;  but  we  are  too  near  his 
time,  too  imperfectly  aware  of  what  he  has  done  for  us, 
to  be  able  to  appreciate  the  full  measure  or  quality  of 
the  benefit  he  has  bestowed  upon  us  and  our  posterity, 
by  his  simply  reducing  man  to  himself — bringing  him 
back  to  the  knowledge,  the  acknowledgment,  and  the 
obedience  of  the  laws  of  his  nature. 

Dr.  Combe's  best-known  publications  are,  his  Princi- 
ples of  Physiology  applied  to  Health  and  Education,  his 
Physiology  of  Digestion,  and  his  Treatise  on  the  Physio- 
logical and  Moral  Management  of  Infancy.  The  first 
was  the  earliest,  and  is  still  the  best  exposition  and  ap- 
plication of  the  laws  of  health.  His  Digestion  is  perhaps 
the  most  original  of  the  three.  It  is  not  so  much  taken 
up  —  as  such  treatises,  however  excellent,  generally  are 

—  with  what  to  eat  and  what  not  to  eat,  as  with  how  to 
eat  anything  and  avoid  nothing,  how  so  to  regulate  the 
great  ruling  powers  of  the  body,  as  to  make  the  stomach 


132  DR.    ANDREW   COMBE. 

do  its  duty  upon  whatever  that  is  edible  is  submitted  to 
it.  His  book  on  the  Management  of  Infancy  is  to  us  the 
most  delightful  of  all  his  works  :  it  has  the  simplicity 
and  mild  strength,  the  richness  and  vital  nutriment  of 
"  the  sincere  milk  "  —  that  first  and  best-cooked  food  of 
man.  This  lactea  ubertas  pervades  the  whole  little  vol- 
ume ;  and  we  know  of  none  of  Dr.  Combe's  books  in 
which  the  references  to  a  superintending  Providence,  to 
a  Divine  Father,  to  a  present  Deity,  to  be  loved,  hon- 
ored, and  obeyed,  are  so  natural,  so  impressive,  so  nu- 
merous, and  so  child-like.  His  Observations  on  Mental 
Derangement  have  long  been  out  of  print.  We  sincerely 
trust  that  Dr.  James  Coxe,  who  has  so  well  edited  the 
last  edition  of  his  uncle's  Physiology,  may  soon  give  us  a 
new  one  of  this  important  work,  which  carries  his  princi- 
ples into  an  important  region  of  human  suffering.  Apart 
altogether  from  its  peculiar  interest  as  an  application  of 
Phrenology  to  the  knowledge  and  cure  of  Insanity  —  it 
is,  as  Dr.  Abercrombie,  who  was  not  lavish  of  his  praise, 
said,  "full  of  sound  observation  and  accurate  thinking, 
and  likely  to  be  very  useful." 

There  is,  by  the  by,  one  of  Dr.  Combe's  papers,  not 
mentioned  by  his  brother,  which  we  remember  reading 
with  great  satisfaction  and  profit,  and  which  shows  how 
he  carried  his  common  sense,  and  his  desire  to  be  useful, 
into  the  minutest  arrangements.  It  appears  in  Cham- 
bers's  Journal  for  August  30,  1834,  and  is  entitled, 
"  Sending  for  the  Doctor ; "  we  hope  to  see  the  nine 
rules  therein  laid  down,  in  the  next  edition  of  the  Life. 

We  shall  now  conclude  this  curious  survey  of  Dr. 
Combe's  relations,  general  and  direct,  to  medicine,  by 
earnestly  recommending  the  study  of  his  Memoirs  to  all 
medical  men,  young  and  old,  but  especially  the  young 


DR.   ANDREW   COMBE.  133 

They  will  get  not  merely  much  instruction  of  a  general 
kind,  from  the  contemplation  of  a  character  of  singular 
worth,  beauty,  and  usefulness,  but  they  will  find  lessons 
everywhere,  in  their  own  profession,  lessons  in  doctrine 
and  in  personal  conduct ;  and  they  will  find  the  entire 
history  of  a  patient's  life  and  death,  given  with  a  rare 
fulness,  accuracy,  and  impressiveness  ;  they  will  get  hints 
incidentally  of  how  he  managed  the  homeliest  and  most 
delicate  matters  ;  how,  with  order,  honesty,  and  an  ar- 
dent desire  to  do  good,  he  accomplished  so  much, 
against  and  in  spite  of  so  much.  We  would,  in  fine, 
recommend  his  letter  to  Sir  James  Clark  on  the  impor- 
tance of  Hygiene  as  a  branch  of  medical  education  (p. 
311) ;  his  letter  to  the  same  friend  on  medical  education 
(p.  341),  in  regard  to  which  we  agree  with  Sir  James, 
that  the  medical  student  cannot  have  a  better  guide  dur- 
ing the  progress  of  his  studies ;  a  letter  on  the  state  of 
medical  science  (p.  400)  ;  his  remarks  on  the  qualifica- 
tions for  the  superintendent  of  a  lunatic  asylum  ;  and, 
at  p.  468,  on  scepticism  on  the  subject  of  medical  sci- 
ence. These,  and  his  three  admirable  letters  to  Dr. 
Forbes,  would  make  a  choice  little  book.  We  conclude 
with  a  few  extracts  taken  from  these  papers  at  random. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  put  more  truth  on  their  subjects 
into  better  words. 

"  I  have  always  attached  much  less  importance  than 
is  usually  done,  to  the  abstract  possibility  or  impossibil- 
ity of  finishing  the  compulsory  part  of  professional  edu- 
cation, within  a  given  time,  and  have  long  thought  that 
more  harm  than  good  has  been  done  by  fixing  too  early 
a  limit.  The  intelligent  exercise  of  medicine  requires 
not  only  a  greater  extent  of  scientific,  and  general  attain- 
ments, but  also  readier  comprehensiveness  of  mind,  and 


134  DR.    ANDREW    COMBE. 

greater  accuracy  of  thinking  and  maturity  of  judgment, 
than  perhaps  any  other  profession  ;  and  these  are  quali- 
ties rarely  to  be  met  with  in  early  youth.  So  generally 
is  this  felt  to  be  the  case,  that  it  is  an  all  but  universal 
practice  for  those  who  are  really  devoted  to  the  profes- 
sion, to  continue  their  studies  for  two  or  three  years,  or 
even  more,  after  having  gone  through  the  prescribed 
curriculum,  and  obtained  their  diplomas  ;  and  those  only 
follow  a  different  course  who  are  pressed  by  necessity  to 
encounter  the  responsibilities  of  practice,  whether  satis- 
fied or  not  with  their  own  qualifications  ;  and  if  this  be 
the  case,  does  it  not  amount  to  a  virtual  recognition, 
that  the  period  now  assigned  by  the  curriculum  is  too 
short,  and  ought  to  be  extended  ?  In  point  of  fact,  this 
latter  period  of  study  is  felt  by  all  to  be  by  far  the  most 
instructive  of  the  whole,  because  now  the  mind  is  com- 
paratively matured,  and  able  to  draw  its  own  inferences 
from  the  facts  and  observations  of  which  it  could  before 
make  little  or  no  use ;  and  it  is  precisely  those  who  en- 
ter upon  practice  too  early  who  are  most  apt  to  become 
routine  practitioners,  and  to  do  the  least  for  the  advance- 
ment of  medicine  as  a  science."  —  P.  343. 

"  The  only  thing  of  which  I  doubt  the  propriety  is, 
requiring  the  study  of  logic  and  moral  philosophy  at  so 
early  an  age.  For  though  a  young  man  before  eighteen 
may  easily  acquire  a  sufficient  acquaintance  with  one  or 
two  books  on  these  subjects,  such  as  Whately  and  Paley, 
to  be  able  to  answer  questions  readily,  I  am  quite  con- 
vinced that  his  doing  so  will  be  the  result  merely  of  an 
intellectual  effort  in  which  memory  will  be  exercised 
much  more  than  judgment,  and  that  the  subjects  will 
not  become  really  useful  to  him  like  those  which  he  feels 
and  thoroughly  understands,  but  will  slip  from  him  the 


DR.   ANDREW  COMBE.  13 0 

moment  his  examination  is  at  an  end,  and  probably 
leave  a  distaste  for  them  ever  after.  To  logic,  so  far  as 
connected  with  the  structure  of  language,  there  can  be 
no  objection  at  that  age  ;  but  as  an  abstract  branch  of 
science,  I  regard  it,  in  its  proper  development,  as  fit  only 
for  a  more  advanced  period  of  life.  The  whole  basis 
and  superstructure  of  moral  philosophy,  too,  imply  for 
their  appreciation  a  practical  knowledge  of  human  na- 
ture, and  of  man's  position  in  society,  of  his  proper  aims 
and  duties,  and  of  his  political  situation,  —  which  it  is 
impossible  for  a  mere  youth  to  possess  ;  and,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  acquaintance  with,  and  interest  in  the  real  sub- 
jects, to  train  the  mind  to  the  use  of  words  and  phrases 
descriptive  of  them  (but,  to  him,  without  correct  mean- 
ing) is  likely  to  be  more  injurious  than  beneficial.  A 
man  must  have  seen  and  felt  some  of  the  perplexities  of 
his  destiny,  and  begun  to  reflect  upon  them  in  his  own 
mind,  before  he  can  take  an  intelligent  interest  in  their 
discussion.  To  reason  about  them  sooner,  is  like  reason- 
ing without  data ;  and  besides,  as  the  powers  of  reflec- 
tion are  always  the  latest  in  arriving  at  maturity,  we 
may  fairly  infer  that  Nature  meant  the  knowledge  and 
experience  to  come  first."  —  P.  348. 

Sir  William  Hamilton,  who  differs  so  widely  from 
Dr.  Combe  in  much,  agrees  with  him  in  this,  as  may  be 
seen  from  the  following  note  in  his  edition  of  Reid,  p. 
420.1 

1  As  a  corollary  of  this  truth  ("Reflection  does  not  appear  in  chil- 
dren. Of  all  the  powers  of  the  mind,  it  seems  to  be  of  the  latest 
growth,  whereas  consciousness  is  coeval  with  the  earliest"),  Mr. 
Stewart  makes  the  following  observations,  in  which  he  is  supported 
bv  every  competent  authority  in  education.  The  two  northern  uni- 
versities ba"«  long  withdrawn  themselves  from  the  reproach  of  plac- 
ing Physic"  last  in  their  curriculum  of  arts.  In  that  of  Edinburgh, 


136  DR.  ANDREW   COMBE. 

"  If  there  is  one  fault  greater  than  another,  and  one 
source  of  error  more  prolific  than  another,  in  medical 
investigations,  it  is  the  absence  of  a  consistent  and  phil- 
osophic mode  of  proceeding  ;  and  no  greater  boon  could 
be  conferred  upon  medicine,  as  a  science,  than  to  render 
its  cultivators  familiar  with  the  laws  or  principles  by 
which  inquiry  ought  to  be  directed.  I  therefore  regard 
what  I  should  term  a  system  of  Medical  Logic  as  of 
inestimable  value  in  the  education  of  the  practitioner ; 
but  I  think  that  the  proper  time  for  it  would  be  after 
the  student  had  acquired  a  competent  extent  of  knowl- 
edge, and  a  certain  maturity  of  mind."  —  P.  350. 

"  The  one  great  object  ought  to  be  the  due  qualifica- 

no  order  is  prescribed  ;  but  in  St.  Andrews  and  Glasgow,  the%  class  of 
Physics  still  stands  after  those  of  mental  philosophy.  This  absurdity 
is,  it  is  to  be  observed,  altogether  of  a  modern  introduction.  For, 
when  our  Scottish  universities  were  founded,  and  long  after,  the  phi- 
losophy of  mind  was  taught  by  the  professor  of  physics.  "  I  appre- 
hend," says  Mr.  Stewart,  "  that  the  study  of  the  mind  should  form 
the  last  branch  of  the  education  of  youth;  an  order  which  Nature  her- 
self seems  to  point  out,  by  what  I  have  already  remarked  with  respect 
to  the  development  of  our  faculties.  After  the  understanding  is  well 
stored  with  particular  facts,  and  has  been  conversant  with  particular 
scientific  pursuits,  it  will  be  enabled  to  speculate  concerning  its  own 
powers  with  additional  advantage,  and  will  run  no  hazard  in  indulg- 
ing too  far  in  such  inquiries.  Nothing  can  be  more  absurd,  on  this  as 
well  as  on  many  other  accounts,  than  the  common  practice  which  is 
followed  in  our  universities  [in  some  only],  of  beginning  a  course 
of  philosophical  education  with  the  study  of  logic.  If  this  order  were 
completely  reversed  ;  and  if  the  study  of  logic  were  delayed  till  after 
the  mind  of  the  student  was  well  stored  with  particular  facts  in  phys- 
ics, in  chemistry,  in  natural  and  civil  history,  his  attention  might  be 
led  with  the  most  important  advantage,  and  without  any  danger  to 
his  power  of  observation,  to  an  examination  of  his  own  faculties, 
which,  besides  opening  to  him  a  new  and  pleasing  field  of  speculation 
would  enable  him  to  form  an  estimate  of  his  own  powers,  of  the  acqui- 
sitions he  has  made,  of  the  habits  he  has  formed,  and  of  the  f  urthe- 
improvements  of  which  his  mind  is  susceptible."  —  H. 


DR.    ANDREW   COMBE.  137 

tion  of  the  practitioner ;  and  whatever  will  contribute 
to  that  end  ought  to  be  retained,  whether  it  may  happen 
to  agree  with  or  differ  from  the  curricula  of  other  uni- 

O 

versities  or  licensing  bodies.  Ttie  sooner  one  uniform 
system  of  education  and  equality  of  privileges  prevails 
throughout  the  kingdom,  the  better  for  all  parties."  —  P. 
359. 

"  The  longer  I  live,  the  more  I  am  convinced  that 
medical  education  is  too  limited  and  too  hurried,  rather 
than  too  extended  ;  for,  after  all,  four  years  is  but  a  short 
time  for  a  mind  still  immature  to  be  occupied  in  master- 
ing and  digesting  so  many  subjects  and  so  many  details. 
Instead  of  the  curriculum  being  curtailed,  however,  I 
feel  assured  that  ultimately  the  period  of  study  will  be 
extended.  Supposing  a  young  man  to  be  engaged  in 
the  acquisition  of  knowledge  and  experience  till  the  age 
of  twenty-three  instead  of  twenty-one,  can  it  be  said 
that  he  will  then  be  too  old  for  entering  upon  independ- 
ent practice  ?  or  that  his  mind  is  even  then  fully  ma- 
tured, or  his  stock  of  knowledge  such  as  to  inspire  full 
confidence  ?  It  is  in  vain  to  say  that  young  men  will 
not  enter  the  profession  if  these  additions  are  made. 
The  result  would  inevitably  be  to  attract  a  higher  class 
of  minds,  and  to  raise  the  character  of  the  whole  pro- 
fession."—P.  360. 

"  The  bane  of  medicine  and  of  medical  education  at 
present  is  its  partial  and  limited  scope.  Branches  of 
knowledge,  valuable  in  themselves,  are  studied  almost 
always  separately,  and  without  relation  to  their  general 
bearing  upon  the  one  grand  object  of  the  medical  art, 
viz.,  the  healthy  working  or  restoration  of  the  whole 
bodily  and  mental  functions.  We  have  abundance  of 
tourses  of  lectures  on  all  sorts  of  subjects,  but  are  no- 


138  DR.   ANDREW   COMBE. 

where  taught  to  group  their  results  into  practical  masses 
or  principles.  The  higher  faculties  of  the  professional 
mind  are  thus  left  in  a  great  measure  unexercised.  The 
limited  and  exclusive  knowledge  of  the  observing  powers 
is  alone  sought  after,  and  an  irrational  experience  is 
substituted  for  that  which  alone  is  safe,  because  com- 
prehensive and  true  in  spirit.  The  mind  thus  exercised 
within  narrow  limits,  becomes  narrowed  and  occvpied 
with  small  things.  Small  feelings  follow,  and  the  natural 
result  is  that  place  in  public  estimation  which  narrow- 
mindedness  and  cleverness  in  small  things  deserves.  The 
profession  seeks  to  put  down  quacks,  to  obtain  medical 
reform  by  Act  of  Parliament,  and  to  acquire  public  in- 
fluence ;  and  a  spirit  is  now  active  which  will  bring  forth 
good  fruit  in  due  time.  An  Act  of  Parliament  can 
remedy  many  absurdities  connected  with  the  privileges 
of  old  colleges  and  corporations,  and  greatly  facilitate 
improvement ;  but  the  grand  reform  must  come  from 
within,  and  requires  no  Act  to  legalize  its  appearance. 
Let  the  profession  cultivate  their  art  in  a  liberal  and 
comprehensive  spirit,  and  give  evidence  of  the  predomi- 
nance of  the  scientific  over  the  trade-like  feeling,  and 
the  public  will  no  longer  withhold  their  respect  or  deny 
their  influence."  —  P.  400. 

"  If  you  ask.  Why  did  not  God  effect  his  aim  with- 
out inflicting  pain  or  suffering  on  any  of  us?  that  just 
opens  up  the  question,  Why  did  God  see  fit  to  make 
man,  man,  and  not  an  angel  ?  I  can  see  why  a  watch- 
maker makes  a  watch  here  and  a  clock  there,  because 
my  faculties  and  nature  are  on  a  par  with  the  watch- 
maker's ;  but  to  understand  why  God  made  man  what 
he  is,  I  must  have  the  faculties  and  comprehension  of 
the  Divine  Being;  or,  in  other  words,  the  creature  must 


DR.   ANDREW  COMBE.  139 

be  the  equal  of  the  Creator  in  intellect  before  he  can 
understand  the  cause  of  his  own  original  formation. 
Into  that,  therefore,  I  am  quite  contented  not  to  in- 
quire." —  P.  403. 

"  I  should  say  that  the  province  of  Hygiene  is  to  ex- 
amine the  relations  existing  between  the  human  consti- 
tution on  the  one  hand,  and  the  various  external  objects 
or  influences  by  which  it  is  surrounded  on  the  other; 
and  to  deduce,  from  that  examination,  the  principles  or 
rules  by  which  the  highest  health  and  efficiency  of  all 
our  functions,  moral,  intellectual,  and  corporeal,  may 
be  most  certainly  secured,  and  by  obedience  to  which 
we  may,  when  once  diseased,  most  speedily  and  safely 
regain  our  health.  But  perhaps  the  true  nature  of  Hy- 
giene will  be  best  exhibited  by  contrasting  what  at  pres- 
ent is  taught,  with  what  we  require  at  the  bedside  of 
the  patient,  and  yet  are  left  to  pick  up  at  random  in  the 
best  way  we  can."  —  P.  312 

"  Hygiene>  according  to  my  view,  really  forms  the 
connecting  link  by  which  '1.1  the  branches  of  profes- 
sional knowledge  are  bovnd  together,  and  rendered 
available  in  promoting  human  health  and  happiness  ; 
and,  in  one  sense,  is  consequently  the  most  important 
subject  for  a  course  of  lectures,  although  very  oddly 
almost  the  only  one  which  has  not  been  taught  syste- 
matically ;  and  I  consider  the  absence  of  the  connecting 
principle  as  the  main  cause  why  medicine  has  advanced 
so  slowly,  and  still  assumes  so  little  of  the  aspect  of  a 
certain  science,  notwithstanding  all  the  talent,  time,  and 
labor  devoted  to  its  cultivation."  —  P.  319. 


140  DR.   ANDREW  COMBE. 


NOTE.— P.  128. 

VIS  MEDICATRIX  NATUR.S. 

DR.  ADAMS,  in  his  Preliminary  Discourse  to  the  Sydenham  Socie- 
ty's Edition  of  the  Genuine  Works  of  Hippocrates,  translated  aud  an- 
notated by  him  —  a  work,  as  full  of  the  best  common  sense  and  judg- 
ment, as  it  is  of  the  best  learning  and  scholarship  —  has  the  following 
passage  :  — 

41  Above  all  others,  Hippocrates  was  strictly  the  physician  of  experi- 
ence and  common  sense.  In  short,  the  basis  of  his  system  was  a 
rational  experience,  and  not  a  blind  empiricism,  so  that  the  Empirics 
in  after  ages  had  no  good  grounds  for  claiming  him  as  belonging  to 
their  sect. 

44  One  of  the  most  distinguishing  characteristics,  then,  of  the  Hippo- 
cratic  system  of  medicine,  is  the  importance  attached  in  it  to  prognosis, 
under  which  was  comprehended  a  complete  acquaintance  with  the 
previous  and  present  condition  of  the  patient,  and  the  tendency  of  the 
disease.  To  the  overstrained  system  of  Diagnosis  practised  in  the 
school  of  Cnidos,  agreeably  to  which  diseases  were  divided  and  sub- 
divided arbitrarily  into  endless  varieties,  Hippocrates  was  decidedly 
opposed;  his  own  strong  sense  and  high  intellectual  cultivation  hav- 
ing, no  doubt,  led  him  to  the  discovery,  that  to  accidental  varieties  of 
diseased  action  there  is  no  limit,  and  that  what  is  indefinite  cannot  be 
reduced  to  science. 

44  Nothing  strikes  one  as  a  stronger  proof  of  his  nobility  of  soul, 
when  we  take  into  account  the  early  period  in  human  cultivation  at 
which  he  lived,  and  his  descent  from  a  priestly  order,  than  the  contempt 
which  he  everywhere  expresses  for  ostentatious  charlatanry,  and  his 
perfect  freedom  from  all  popular  superstition.1  Of  amulets  and  com- 

1  "  This  is  the  more  remarkable,  as  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been  the  es- 
tablished creed  of  the  greatest  literary  men  and  philosophers  of  the  age,  who 
still  adhered,  or  professed  to  adhere,  to  the  popular  belief  ia  the  extraordi- 
nary interference  of  the  gods  with  the  works  of  Nature  and  the  affairs  of 
mankind.  This,  at  least,  was  remarkably  the  case  with  Socrates,  w'n-ise 
mind,  like  that  of  most  men  who  make  a  great  impression  on  the  religious 
feelings  of  their  age,  had  evidently  a  deep  tinge  of  mysticism.  See  Xenoph 
Mentor,  i.  1.  6-9 ;  Ibid.  iv.  7.  7 ;  also  Crete's  History  of  Greece,  vol.  i.  p.  499 
The  latter  remarks,  '  Physical  and  astronomical  phenomena  are  classified  by 
Socrates  among  the  divine  class,  interdicted  to  human  study.'  —  (Mem.  i 
1. 13.)  lie  adds,  in  reference  to  llippocrates,  '  On  the  other  hand,  Uippoc- 
rates,  the  contemporary  of  Socrates,  denied  the  discrepancy,  and  merged 


DR.   ANDREW   COMBE.  141 

plicated  machines  to  impose  on  the  credulity  of  the  ignorant  multitude, 
there  is  no  mention  in  any  part  of  his  works.  All  diseases  he  traces  to 
natural  causes,  and  counts  it  impiety  to  maintain  that  any  one  more 
than  another  is  an  infliction  from  the  Divinity.  How  strikingly  the 
Hippocratic  system  differs  from  that  of  all  other  nations  in  their  in- 
fantine state,  must  be  well  known  to  every  person  who  is  well 
acquainted  with  the  early  history  of  medicine.  His  theory  of  medi- 
cine was  further  based  on  the  physical  philosophy  of  the  ancients, 
more  especially  on  the  doctrines  then  held  regarding  the  elements  of 
things,  and  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  spiritual  essence  diffused 
through  the  whole  works  of  creation,  which  was  regarded  as  the  agent 
that  presides  over  the  acts  of  generation,  and  which  constantly  strives 
to  preserve  all  things  in  their  natural  state,  and  to  restore  them  when 
they  are  preternatural ly  deranged.  This  is  the  principle  which  he 
called  Nature,  and  which  he  held  to  be  a  vis  medicatrix.  'Nature,' 
says  he,  or  at  least  one  of  his  immediate  followers  says,  '  is  the  phy- 
sician of  diseases.'  " 

STAHL,  in  one  of  his  numerous  short  occasional  Tracts,  Schediasmata, 
as  he  calls  them,  in  which  his  deep  and  fiery  nature  was  constantly 
finding  vent,  thus  opens  on  the  doctrine  of  "Nature,"  as  held  by  the 
ancients.  Besides  the  thought,  it  is  a  good  specimen  of  this  great 
man's  abrupt,  impetuous,  pregnant,  and  difficult  expressions  :  — 

"  Notanter  Hippocrates  6.  Kpidem.  5.  'An-ou'SevTo?  17  <j>vcris  eoCcra  Kai 
oil  naOova-a,  TO.  SeovTa  rroieei.  Cum  a  nullo  informata  sit  NATURA,  neque 
quicquam  didicerit,  ea  tamen  quibus  opus  est,  efficit.  Ejficere  et  ope- 
rari,  dicit ;  neque  incongrua  et  aliena,  sed  qua?  necessaria  sint,  quae 
conveniant:  Operari  autem  ipsam  per  se,  non  ex  consilio  (intellige, 
alieno)  lin.  prseced.  monet.  Effeclivum  hoc  &  operalivum  Principium, 
•ri)v  <£ii<ru',  appellat,  TO  Sriniovpyiicbv  ijniai>  alnov  circumscribit  Galen,  de 
Placit.  Hipp,  (f  Platon.  1.  9.  hunc  eundem  locum  attingens.  De  hac 
Natura  prolixius  idem  Galenus  lib.  de  Natur.  facult.  asserit,  quod 
ilia,  suis  viribus  usa,  quce  noxia  sunt,  expellere  noverit,  quce  utilia,  usui 
servare.  Quod  idem  et  lib.  i.  crip.  s.  de  diff.  Febb.  repetit.  Snpien- 
tissimam  ipsam  esse,  itidem  adstruit  lib.  de  arte.  Et  omnia  facere 
talutis  hominum  causa,  in  Comm.  ad  nostrum  locum  interpretatur.  Ne- 
que hoc  tantum  de  statu  Corporis  Humani  tranquillo,  et  sibi  constante, 
intelligendum,  sed  monent  etiam  iidem,  Naturam  hactenus  dictam, 
consulere  corpori  in  dubiis  rebus,  ingruente  nocumentorum  periculo, 

into  one  the  two  classes  of  phenomena  —  the  divine  and  the  scientifically  de- 
terminable  —  which  the  latter  had  put  asunder.  Hippocrates  treated  all  phe- 
nomena as  at  once  both,  divine  and  scientifically  delcrminable.1 " 


142  DR.   ANDREW   COMBE. 

imo  actuales,  noxa-s  illatas,  ita  depellere,  corrigere,  cxterminare,  resar- 
cire,  ut  propterea  Hippocrates,  paulo  antksententiam  hactenus  citatam, 
diserte  affirmet,  Naturam  mederi  morlis.  In  quam  ipsam  assertionein, 
ut  satis  fuse  consentit  Galenas,  ita  notabilia  sunt  ejus  verba,  quod  Na~ 
tura  malum  sentlens,  gestiat  maynopere  mederi.  Et  Corn.  Celsus,  lib. 
3.  c.  i.  Repugnante  Natura,  ait,  nihil  proficit  Mediclna.  lino  nee 
deficitnte  eadem,  ut  Hipp.  lib.  de  arte  monet,  quicquam  obtinet  Med- 
ico, ars,  sed  peril  ceyer.  Dies  deficiat,  neque  hsec  charta  capiat,  si 
plerosque  tantum,  qui  comparent,  testes  Medicos  Practices  scriptores, 
citare  liberet.  Nimirum  QUOD  tale  Activum  et  Effectivum,  Gubernans, 
dirigens,  re  yens,  Principium  in  Corpore  Vivo  praesto  sit,  tarn  in  statu 
sano  quam  concusso,  ayens,  vigilans,  propugnans,  onines  agnoscunt. 

"  Ut  undique  NATURA,  hoc  sensu,  ut  Effectivum  quoddam,  et  qui- 
dem  (cupi'ws  tale,  Principium  asseratur,  quod,  arbitrarie,  agere  non 
agere,  recte  aut  perperam  Organa  sua  actuare,  iisque  non  magis  uti, 
quam  abuti  queat. 

"  Adornarunt  hanc  Doctrinae  Medicse  partem  complures,  turn  Anti- 
quiores,  tiim  propiorum  temporum  Doctores,  sed  nou  eodein  omnes  suc- 
cessu,  nee  fort6  eadem  intentione.  Prolixiores  fuerunt  Veteres,  in  illia 
S  vdneo-iv,  a's  SioKixelrai  TO  £<aov,  ut  ipsam  <t>v<riv  Ilippocratis  describit 
Galenus  lib.  de  Crisibus,  et  1.  5.  de  Sympt.  Caus.  Facultatem  Corporit 
nostri  Reclricem  optima  jure  Naturae  nomine  insiyniendam,  deccrnit. 
Sed  inundavit  hinc  Faculiatem  variarum,  congeries,  &  omneni  Phy- 
sioloyice  antiquioris  paginam  adeo  absolrit,  ut  nihil  offenderetur,  quam 
merse  Facilitates,  Vitalis,  Naturalis,  Animalis,  Genitalis,  Rationalis, 
Eapultrix,  Retentrix,  Attractrix,  Locomotrix,  Coctrix,  Excretrix, 
Sanguifica,  Chylifica,  &c.  &c." 

To  the  Homo2opathic  delusion,  or  shall  we  call  it  "persuasion," 
whose  chief  merit  and  mischief  it  is  to  be  "not  anything  so  much  as 
a  nothing  which  looks  like  a  something,"  we  owe  the  recognition,  in 
a  much  more  practical  way  than  before,  of  the  self-regulating  principle 
in  living  bodies  —  the  physician  inside  the  skin.  It  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  state,  that  the  best  modem  exposition  of  this  doctrine,  and  its 
relation  to  therapeutics,  is  to  be  found  in  SIR  JOHN  FORBES'  courage- 
ous, thoughtful,  and  singularly  candid  little  book,  Art  and  Nature  in 
the  Cure  of  Disease. 

Many  years  ago,  a  countryman  called  on  a  physician  in  York.  He 
was  in  the  depths  of  dyspeptic  despair,  as  often  happens  with  the  chaw- 
bacons.  The  doctor  gave  him  some  plain  advice  as  to  his  food,  mak- 
ing a  thorough  change,  and  ended  by  writing  a  prescription  for  some 
tonic,  saying,  "Take  that,  and  come  back  in  a  fortnight."  In  tea 
day  Giles  came  in,  blooming  and  happy,  quite  well.  The  doctor  was 


DR.   ANDREW   COMBE.  143 

delighted,  and  not  a  little  proud  of  his  skill.  He  asked  to  see  what  he 
had  given  him.  Giles  said  he  had  n't  got  it.  "  Where  was  it  ?  "  "I 
took  it,  Sir."  " Took  it  !  what  have  you  done  with  it  V  "  "I  ate  it, 
Sir  !  you  told  me  to  take  it  ! "  We  once  told  this  little  story  to  a 
Homoeopathic  friend,  adding,  "Perhaps  you  think  the  iron  in  the  ink 
may  be  credited  with  the  cure  ?"  "Well,"  said  my  much-believing 
friend,  "there  is  no  saying."  No  saying,  indeed  !  and  no  thinking 
either  !  such  matters  lie  at  least  in  the  region  of  the  non-know*  '&. 


DR.  HENRY  MARSHALL  AND  MILITARY 
HYGIENE. 


'To  labor  diligently,  and  to  be  content,"  says  the  son  of  Sirach, 
"is  a  sweet  life." 

"  My  greatest  deliylit  has  been  to  promote  a  melioration  of  the  con- 
dition of  soldiers,  and  in  the  prosecution  of  this  important  object,  1 
hope  I  have  done  some  good."  —  Da.  MARSHALL. 


1C 


DR.     HENRY    MARSHALL    AND    MILITARY 
HYGIENE. 

WENTY-FIVE  years  ago,  the  British  soldiei 
(taking  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred)  was  a 
man  who,  when  in  the  eye  of  the  law  a  minor, 
had  iu  a  fit  of  passion,  or  when  drunk,  or  from  idleness, 
want,  or  to  avoid  civil  punishment,  sold  his  personal  lib- 
erty, his  life  —  in  one  word,  himself  —  to  the  State  with- 
out reservation.  In  return  for  this,  he  got  a  bounty  of 
£3,  10s.,  which  was  taken  back  as  soon  as  he  was  at- 
tested, to  pay  for  his  outfit  —  his  kit,  at  it  is  called  — 
and  he  enjoyed  an  annuity  of  Is.  Id.  a  day,  out  of 
which,  after  paying  his  share  of  the  mess,  his  shoes,  etc., 
there  remained  of  daily  surplus  about  3d.  The  State 
provided  lodging  and  medical  attendance,  and  the  name, 
but  little  else,  of  religious  and  general  education.  In 
return,  he  put  his  will  in  the  hands  of  the  State,  and  was 
bound,  at  any  time,  and  upon  any  ground,  to  destroy  any 
other  man's  life,  or  lose  his  own,  at  the  word  of  com- 
mand.1 He  was,  as  rapidly  as  possible,  drilled  into  that 

1  Every  one  knows  Herr  Diogenes  Teufelsdrock's  account  of  this  in 
that  fantastic  and  delightful  book  Sartor  Resartus :  —  "What,  speak- 
ing in  quite  unofficial  language,  is  the  net  purport  and  upshot  of  sol- 
diers and  of  war?  To  my  own  knowledge,  for  example,  there  dwell 
and  toil  in  the  British  village  of  Drumdrudge,  usually  some  five  hun- 
dred souls.  From  these,  by  certain  'natural  enemies'  of  the  French, 
there  are  necessarily  selected,  during  the  French  war,  say  thirty  able- 
bodied  men.  Drumdrudge,  at  her  own  expense,  has  suckled  and 


148        DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE. 

perfect  man-slaying  instrument,  that  consummate  de- 
Btroyer,  that  we  and  our  enemies  know  him  to  be.  And 
having  no  hope,  no  self-respect,  no  spiritual  progression, 
nothing  to  look  forward  to,  he  sank  into  the  sullen, 
stupid,  indomitable  human  bull-dog.  He  lived  in  hope- 
less celibacy,  shut  out  from  the  influence  of  any  but 
the  worst  of  the  other  sex.  He  became  proverbially 
drunken,  licentious,  and  profane.  He  knew  his  officer 
only  to  obey  him,  and  often  to  hate  and  despise  him. 
Memory  and  hope  died  within  him  ;  for  what  had  he  to 
remember  but  his  own  early  follies  and  fatal  enlistment, 
or  to  anticipate  but  the  chances  of  his  being  killed,  or 
dying  wretchedly  of  disease,  or  being  turned  off  a  stupid, 
helpless,  and  friendless  old  man  ?  No  wonder  that  he 

nursed  them  ;  she  has,  not  without  difficulty  and  sorrow,  fed  them  up 
to  manhood,  and  even  trained  them  to  crafts,  so  that  one  can  weave, 
and  another  build,  another  hammer  or  stitch,  and  the  weakest  can 
stand  under  thirty  pounds  avoirdupois.  Nevertheless,  amid  much 
weeping  and  swearing,  they  are  selected,  all  dressed  in  red,  and 
shipped  away  at  the  public  charges,  some  two  thousand  miles,  or  say 
only  to  the  south  of  Spain,  and  fed  and  scourged  there  till  wanted. 
And  now  to  that  same  spot  in  the  south  of  Spain  are  thirty  French 
handicraftsmen  from  a  French  Drumdrudge,  in  like  manner  wending  ; 
till  at  length,  after  infinite  effort  and  expense,  the  two  parties  actually 
meet,  and  thirty  stand  confronting  thirty,  each  with  a  gun  in  his  hand. 
Straightway  the  word  '  fire '  is  given,  and  they  blow  the  souls  out  of 
one  another  ;  and  in  place  of  sixty  brisk,  useful  workmen,  the  world 
has  sixty  dead  carcasses  which  it  must  bury,  and  anew  shed  tears  for. 
Had  these  men  any  quarrel  ?  Busy  as  the  devil  is,  not  the  smallest  ; 
they  lived  far  enough  apart,  nay,  in  so  wide  a  world,  there  was  even 
unconsciously,  by  commerce,  some  mutual  helpfulness  between  them. 
How  then  ?  Simpleton !  Their  governors  had  fallen  out,  and  instead 
of  shooting  one  another,  had  the  cunning  to  make  their  poor  block- 
heads shoot.  In  that  fiction  of  the  English  Smollett,  it  is  true,  the 
final  cessation  of  war  is  perhaps  prophetically  shadowed  forth  when 
the  'two  natural  enemies'  (France  and  Britain)  in  person  take  each  a 
tobacco-pipe  filled  with  brimstone,  light  the  same,  and  smoke  in  each 
other's  faces  till  one  or  both  give  in." 


DR.   MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY  HYGIENE.        149 

was,  as  is  proved  by  the  greater  frequency  of  suicide  in 
military  than  in  civil  life,  more  miserable  and  less  care- 
ful of  himself  than  other  men.  His  daily  routine  was 
somewhat  as  follows :  —  He  was  drummed  out  of  bed  at 
five  o'clock,  his  room  being  a  large  common  dormitory, 
where  three  or  four  blackguards  might  make  all  the  rest 
comfortless  and  silent.  He  rushed  out  of  doors  to  the 
oump,  and  washed  himself  out  of  his  hands,  there  being 
no  basin  provided  for  him,  as  he  best  could,  and  went 
to  drill ;  breakfasted  substantially,  then  out  to  parade, 
where  he  must  be  in  proper  trim,  pipe-clay  immaculate ; 
then  through  the  everlasting  round  of  "  Attention ! 
Eyes  right !  Stand  at  ease,"  etc.  Dinner  at  one  o'clock, 
of  broth  and  boiled  meat,  and  after  that  nothing  to  do 
till  nine  at  night,  or  to  eat  till  breakfast  next  morning. 

Can  there  be  any  wonder  that  the  subjects  of  this 
system  became  so  often  drunkards,  and  ran  into  all  sorts 
of  low  dissipation,  ruining  themselves,  soul  and  body? 
Much  of  this  evil  is  of  course  inherent  and  necessary ; 
it  is  founded  in  the  constitution  of  man  that  such  should 
be,  in  the  main,  the  result  of  such  an  unnatural  state  of 
things.  But  within  these  five-and-twenty  years  there 
have  been  numerous  improvements.  The  soldier  is  now 
a  freer,  happier,  healthier  man,  more  intelligent  and 
moral,  and  certainly  not  less  efficient  than  he  ever  was 
since  the  institution  of  a  standing  army. 

In  an  admirable  speech  in  February  last,  when  mov- 
ing the  estimates  for  the  army,  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert 
made  the  following  remark  :  — "  He  did  not  believe 
that  at  any  period  had  the  soldier  been  more  comforta- 
ble than  at  the  present  moment ; "  he  might  safely  have 
said  as  comfortable  as  at  the  present  moment.  After 
showing  that,  by  strict  and  continuous  vigilance  in  this 


150       DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY  HYGIENE. 

department,  in  eighteen  years,  since  1835,  "  the  pat- 
tern year  of  economy,"  there  had  been  a  reduction  of 
£132,766,  as  compared  with  the  estimate  of  that  year, 
while,  for  the  smaller  sum,  we  maintained  21,000  men 
more,  the  cost  of  each  man  being  £42,  15s.  lid.  in  1835, 
and  in  the  present  year  £40,  3s.  6d.,  £10  of  this  being 
for  the  cost  of  the  officers,  making  the  expense  of  each 
private  £30,  3s.  6d. ;  after  making  this  exposition  of  the 
greater  economy  in  the  production  and  maintenance  of 
our  soldiers,  Mr.  Herbert  went  on  to  show  that  this 
had  been  effected  not  only  without  in  any  way  curtailing 
their  comforts,  but  with  an  immense  increase  in  their 
material  and  moral  wellbeing.  We  shall  mention  some 
of  the  more  marked  causes  and  proofs  of  this  gratifying 
and  remarkable  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the 
army,  as  regards  the  intelligence,  morality,  health,  and 
general  condition  of  the  common  soldier. 

1st,  The  Good- Conduct  Pay  has  been  increased  to 
£65,000  a  year.  Formerly,  every  man  got  an  increase 
of  pay  for  long  service ;  now  he  gets  Id.  a  day  added  to 
his  pay  at  the  end  of  every  five  years  —  it  was  at  first 
seven  —  provided  he  has  been  clear  of  the  defaulter's 
books  for  two  years,  and  he  carries  one-half  of  it  to  his 
pension,  in  addition  to  the  amount  he  is  entitled  to  for 
length  of  service.  This  scheme  is  working  well. 

2d,  Barrack  Libraries  have  been  instituted,  and 
with  signal  benefit.  There  are  now  150  libraries.,  with 
117,000  volumes,  and  16,000  subscribers,  the  men  giv- 
ing a  penny  a  month. 

3d,  Regimental  Schools,  remodelled  by  Mr.  Herbert, 
whose  plans  were  excellently  carried  out  by  Lord  Pan- 
mure.  After  encountering  much  prejudice  and  objec- 
tion, this  plan  is  going  on  prosperously.  There  are  now 


DR.   MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE.        161 

employed  with  different  corps,  sixty  trained  masters  and 
sixteen  assistants,  a  class  of  men  very  different  from  the 
old  schoolmaster-sergeant.  In  the  77th  Regiment,  the 
school-roll  amounts  to  538  adults ;  the  35th,  to  371 ;  the 
82d,  to  270.  This  attendance  is  voluntary,  and  is  paid 
for ;  the  only  compulsory  attendance  being  in  the  case 
of  recruits,  so  long  as  drilling  lasts. 
^  4th,  Savings'  Banks,  established  in  1844.  In  1852, 
/ae  number  of  depositors  was  9447  ;  the  amount  depos- 
ited, £111,920. 

5th,  Diminution  of  Punishments.  —  In  1838,  the 
number  of  corporal  punishments  was  879;  in  1851, 
206 ;  and  in  1852  —  the  return  being  for  the  troops  at 
home,  and  half  the  force  on  foreign  stations  —  they  were 
as  low  as  96,  and  all  this  without  the  slightest  relaxa- 
tion of  discipline.  In  1838,  the  number  of  persons  tried 
by  courts-martial  was  in  proportion  to  the  entire  effec- 
tive force  as  1  in  11^.  Now,  it  is  only  1  in  16. 

6th,  Increased  Longevity.  —  There  never  were  so  few 
deaths  per  annum  as  at  present.  At  the  Mauritius  and 
Ceylon  the  mortality  has  fallen  from  43T6^  to  22^  per 
1000  —  nearly  one-half  ;  and  at  Hong-Kong,  too  famous 
for  its  deadly  climate,  more  than  one-half  — 150  to  69; 
while,  in  the  East  and  West  Indies  and  the  Cape,  in 
spite  of  pestilence  and  war,  the  diminution  of  deaths  is 
most  strongly  marked.  Add  to  all  this,  that  unlimited 
service  —  the  legal  sanction  of  a  man  selling  himself  for 
life  —  no  longer  exists,  having  been  abolished  in  1847 
—  thanks  to  Lord  Panmure's  courage  and  wisdom ;  and 
we  have  an  amount  of  misery,  degradation,  and  crime 
prevented,  and  of  comfort,  health,  and  workmanlike 
efficiency  gained,  which  it  would  be  no  easy  matter  to 
estimate  at  its  full  value  and  degree.  In  the  case  of  such 


152        DR.   MAESHALL   AND   MILITARY  HYGIENE. 

an  immense  public  benefit,  it  is  well  to  do  our  best  to 
discover  in  what  quarter,  and  in  what  measure,  as  a 
nation,  whom  all  this  concerns  so  deeply,  our  gratitude 
and  praise  are  due.  To  what,  and  to  whom,  do  we  owe 
all  this  ? 

The  what  is  not  far  to  seek.  Under  God,  we  owe 
this  change  for  the  better,  like  so  many  others  which  we 
are  enjoying  and  forgetting,  to  that  mighty  agent  which 
is  in  our  day  doing  such  wonders,  and  which  will  yet  do 
more  and  greater  —  the  spirit  of  the  age — public  opinion 
—  of  which,  when  so  manifestly  working  out  the  highest 
interests  of  man,  we  may  conditionally,  and  with  rever- 
ence, say,  in  the  words  of  "  the  Book  of  Wisdom,"  that 
it  is  "  the  very  breath  of  the  power  of  God  —  an  under- 
standing spirit  —  kind  to  man,  ready  to  do  good,  one 
only,  yet  manifold,  not  subject  to  hurt,  which  cannot  be 
letted."  This  great  social  element,  viewless,  impalpa- 
ble, inevitable,  untamable  as  the  wind ;  vital,  elastic,  all- 
penetrating,  all-encompassing  as  the  air  we  breathe,  the 
very  soul  of  the  body  politic,  is  —  like  the  great  laws  of 
nature  —  of  which,  indeed,  it  is  itself  one  —  for  ever  at 
its  work ;  and  like  its  Divine  Author  and  Guide  goes 
about  continually  doing  good.  Without  it,  what  could 
any  man,  any  government,  do  for  the  real  good  of  man- 
kind ?  It  cannot  be  letted.  If  you  are  against  it,  get 
out  of  its  way  as  you  best  can,  and  stand  aside  and  won- 
der at  its  victorious  march.  But  why  not  rather  go  with 
it,  and  by  it  ?  This  is  that  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men  — 
a  Deo  ad  Deum  —  that  onward  movement  of  the  race  in 
knowledge,  in  power,  in  worth,  and  in  happiness,  which 
has  gladdened  and  cheered  all  who  believe,  and  who, 
through  long  ages  of  gloom,  and  misery,  and  havoc, 
have  still  believed  that  truth  is  strong,  next  to  the  Al- 


DR.   MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE.        153 

mighty  —  that  goodness  is  the  law  of  His  universe,  and 
happiness  its  end,  and  who  have  faith  in 

"That  God  which  ever  lives  and  loves, 
Oue  God,  one  law,  one  element, 
And  one  far-off  Divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

It  is  a  tide  that  has  never  turned ;  unlike  the  poet's, 
it  answers  the  behest  of  no  waning  and  waxing  orb,  it 
follows  the  eye  of  Him  who  is  without  variableness  or 
the  shadow  of  turning.  And  no  man  has  yet  taken  it  at 
its  flood.  It  has  its  flux  and  reflux,  its  ebb  and  flow,  its 
darkness  and  its  bright  light,  its  storm  and  calm ;  and, 
as  a  child  who  watched  the  rising  tide,  and  saw  the 
wave  in  the  act  of  withdrawing  itself,  might,  if  it  saw 
no  more,  say  the  sea  was  retreating,  so  with  the  world's 
progress  in  liberty,  happiness,  and  virtue ;  some  may 
think  its  best  is  over,  its  fulness  past,  its  ebb  far  on  ;  but 
let  the  child  look  again  —  let  the  patriot  be  of  good 
cheer,  and  watch  for  the  next  wave,  it  may  be  a  ninth, 
curling  his  monstrous  head  and  hanging  it  —  how  it 
sweeps  higher  up  the  beach,  tosses  aside  as  very  little 
things,  into  ruin  and  oblivion,  or  passes  clear  over  them, 
the  rocks  and  the  noisy  bulwarks  of  man's  device,  which 
had  for  long  fretted  and  turned  aside  and  baffled  all  for- 
mer waves ;  and  to  the  historic  eye,  these  once  formida- 
ble barriers  may  be  seen  far  down  in  the  clear  waters, 
nndisturbing  and  undisturbed  —  the  deep  covering  them, 
—  it  may  be  seen  what  they  really  were,  how  little  or 
how  big.  If  our  readers  wish  to  imagine  how  the  power 
of  public  opinion,  this  tide  of  time,  deals  with  its  ene- 
mies and  with  its  friends  —  how  it  settles  its  quarrels 
and  attains  its  ends,  and  how,  all  at  once  and  unexpect- 
edly, it  may  be  seen  flowing  in,  without  let  or  hindrance* 


154       DR.   MARSHALL   AND  MILITARY  HYGIENE. 

"Whispering  how  meek  and  gentle  it  can  be," 
let  him  go  down  to  the  sea-shore,  and  watch  the  rising 
tide,  coming  on  lazily  at  first,  as  if  without  aim  or  pith, 
turned  aside  by  any  rock,  going  round  it,  covering  it  by 
and  by,  swayed  and  troubled  by  every  wind,  shadowed 
by  every  passing  cloud,  as  if  it  were  the  ficklest  of  all 
things,  and  had  no  mind  of  its  own ;  he  will,  however, 
notice,  if  he  stays  long  enough,  that  there  is  one  thing 
it  is  always  doing,  the  one  thing  it  most  assuredly  will 
do,  and  that  is,  to  move  on  and  up,  to  deepen  and  ex- 
tend. So  is  it  with  the  advance  of  truth  and  goodness 
over  our  world.  Whatever  appearances  may  be,  let  us 
rest  assured  the  tide  is  making,  and  is  on  its  way  to  its 
fulness. 

We  are  aware  that  in  speaking  of  such  matters,  it  is 
not  easy  to  avoid  exaggeration  both  in  thought  and  ex- 
pression ;  but  we  may  go  wrong,  not  less  by  feeling  and 
speaking  too  little,  than  by  feeling  and  speaking  too 
much.  It  is  profane  and  foolish  to  deify  public  opinion, 
or,  indeed,  anything;  but  it  is  not  right,  it  is  not  safe  to 
err  on  the  other  side,  to  ignore  and  vilipend.  In  one 
sense,  public  opinion  is  a  very  commonplace  subject ;  iu 
another,  it  is  one  of  the  chiefest  of  the  ways  of  God, 
one  of  the  most  signal  instruments  in  his  hand,  for  mov- 
ing on  to  their  consummation  his  undisturbed  affairs. 
There  never  was  a  time  in  the  world's  history,  and  there? 
never  was  a  nation,  in  which  this  mighty  agent  made 
head  as  it  is  doing  now,  and  in  ours.  Everywhere  and 
over  every  department  of  human  suffering  and  need,  it 
is  to  be  found  arising  with  healing  under  its  wings. 
That  it  goes  wrong  and  does  wrong  is  merely  to  say 
that  it  works  by  human  means;  but  that  in  the  main  it 
fe  on  the  right  road  and  on  the  right  errand,  and  thaf 


DR.   MARSHALL  AXD  MILITARY  HYGIENE.        155 

thus  far  it  is  Divine,  and  has  in  it  the  very  breath  of  the 
power  of  God,  no  man,  surely,  who  discerns  the  times 
and  the  seasons  will  deny ;  to  use  the  eloquent  words  of 
Maurice  :  "  In  a  civilized  country  —  above  all,  in  one 
which  possesses  a  free  press  —  there  is  a  certain  power, 
mysterious  and  indefinite  in  its  operations,  but  producing 
the  most  obvious  and  mighty  effects,  which  we  call  pub- 
lic opinion.  It  is  vague,  indefinite,  intangible  enough, 
no  doubt;  but  is  not  that  the  case  with  all  the  powers 
which  affect  us  most  in  the  physical  world  ?  The  further 
men  advance  in  the  study  of  nature,  the  more  these  in- 
controllable,  invincible  forces  make  themselves  known. 
If  we  think  with  some  of  mysterious  affinities,  of  some 
one  mighty  principle  which  binds  the  elements  of  the 
universe  together,  why  should  we  not  wonder,  also,  at 
these  moral  affinities,  this  more  subtle  magnetism,  which 
bears  witness  that  every  man  is  connected  by  the  most 
intimate  bonds  with  his  neighbor,  and  that  no  one  can 
live  independently  of  another  ?  " 

We  believe  that  in  the  future,  and  it  may  be  not  very 
far-off  history  of  our  world,  this  associative  principle, 
this  attractive,  quickening  power,  is  destined  to  work 
wonders  in  its  own  region,  to  which  the  marvels  of  phys- 
ical science  in  our  days  will  be  as  nothing.  Society,  as 
a  great  normal  institute  of  human  nature,  is  a  power 
whose  capacities  in  its  own  proper  sphere  of  action,  such 
as  it  now  exhibits,  or  has  ever  exhibited,  and  such  as  it 
is  destined  hereafter  to  exhibit,  are  to  each  other  as  is 
the  weight,  the  momentum  of  a  drop  of  water,  to  the 
energy  of  that  drop  converted  into  steam  and  compressed 
and  set  a-working.  We  believe  this'  will  be  one  of  the 
crowning  discoveries  and  glories  of  our  race,  about  which, 
as  usual,  we  have  been  long  enough,  and  of  which,  when 


156        DR.    MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE. 

it  comes,  every  one  will  say,  "  How  did  we  never  dis- 
cover that  before  ?  —  how  easy  ;  how  simple  ! "  Soci- 
ety is  of  the  essence  of  unfallen  man ;  it  is  normal ;  it 
preceded  and  will  survive  the  loss  of  Eden  ;  it  belongs 
to  the  physiology  of  human  nature.  Government,  be 
it  of  the  best,  must  always  have  to  do  (and  the  more 
strictly  the  better)  with  its  pathology  —  with  its  fall. 
Were  original  sin  abolished  to-morrow,  the  necessity,  the 
very  materials  of  Government  would  cease.  Society 
and  all  her  immense  capabilities  would  once  more  be 
at  home,  and  full  of  life,  and  go  on  her  way  rejoicing. 
Education,  religion,  and  many  other  things,  all  belong 
by  right  and  by  natural  fitness  to  Society  ;  and  Govern- 
ment has  been  trying  for  thousands  of  years  to  do  her 
work  and  its  own,  and  has,  as  a  matter  of  course,  bun- 
gled both. 

But  we  have  less  to  do  at  present  with  this  wonder- 
working power,  than  with  those  who  were  the  first  to 
direct  and  avail  themselves  of  it,  for  forwarding  and  se- 
curing the  welfare  of  the  common  soldier,  who  had  been 
so  long  shut  out  from  its  beneficent  impulse. 

These  men,  simple-minded,  public-hearted,  industrious, 
resolute,  did  not  work  for  gratitude  —  they  would  not 
have  worked  the  worse,  however,  with  it.  They  are 
gone  elsewhere,  where  no  gratitude  of  ours  can  affect 
them ;  but  it  is  not  the  less  right,  and  good,  and  needful 
for  that  great  creature,  the  public,  to  be  made  to  feel 
this  gratitude,  and  to  let  it  go  forth  in  hearty  acknowl- 
edgment. This  is  a  state  of  mind  which  blesses  quite  as 
much  him  who  gives,  as  him  who  receives ;  and  nothing 
would  tend  more  to  keep  the  public  heart  right,  and  the 
public  conscience  quick  and  powerful,  than  doing  our 
best  to  discover  what  we  owe,  and  to  whom  ;  and  as 


DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY    HYGIENE.        157 

members  of  the  body  politic,  let  our  affection  and  admi- 
ration take  their  free  course.  One  of  the  best  signs  of 
our  times  is  the  extension,  and  deepening,  and  clarifying 
of  this  sense  of  public  duty,  of  our  living  not  for  our- 
selves, of  what  we  owe  to  those  who  have  served  their 
generation  —  the  practical  recognition,  in  a  word,  not 
only  that  we  should  love  our  neighbors  as  ourselves,  but 
that,  according  to  the  interpretation  of  the  word  reserved 
for  the  Divine  Teacher,  every  man  is  our  neighbor. 

The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  any  amelioration  in  the 
moral  condition  and  bodily  comforts  of  the  soldier  must 
of  necessity  be  great,  and  all  experience  confirms  this. 
A  body  of  men  such  as,  in  a  country  like  ours,  a  stand- 
ing army  with  service  for  life,  and  pay  below  the  wages 
of  the  laboring  classes,  must  unavoidably  consist  of,  is 
one  the  reform  of  which  might  deter  and  dishearten  any 
man,  and  excuse  most.  How  often  have  we  been  told 
that  flogging  was  a  necessary  evil ;  that  unlimited  ser- 
vice was  the  stay  of  the  army ;  that  knowledge  would 
make  the  men  discontented,  useless,  and  mischievous ! 
"Soldiers,"  said  Mr.  Pulteney  in  1732,  "are  a  body  of 
men  distinct  from  the  body  of  the  people  ;  they  are  gov 
erned  by  different  laws.  Blind  obedience  is  their  only 
principle."  Bruce,  in  his  Institutions  of  Military  Law, 
1717,  gives  what  we  doubt  not  was  a  true  account  of 
the  composition  of  European  armies  in  his  day :  —  "If 
all  infamous  persons,  and  such  as  have  committed  capital 
crimes,  heretics,  atheists,  (!)  and  all  dastardly  and  effem- 
inate men,  were  weeded  out  of  the  army,  it  would  soon 
be  reduced  to  a  pretty  moderate  number,  the  greater 
part  of  the  soldiery  being  men  of  so  ignoble,  disingenu- 
ous tempers,  that  they  cannot  be  made  obedient  to  the 
allurements  of  rewards  ;  nay,  coercion  being,  generally 


158       DR.    MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE. 

speaking,  the  surest  principle  of  all  vulgar  obedience. 
There  is,  therefore,"  he  grimly  adds,  "  another  part  of 
military  institution  fitted  to  such  men's  capacities,  and 
these  are  the  various  punishments "  (and  such  a  cata- 
logue of  horrors !)  "  awarded  to  their  crimes,  which,  as 
goads,  may  drive  these  brutish  creatures  who  will  not  be 
attracted"  1  We  are  now  at  last  trying  the  principle  of 
attraction,  and  are  finding  it  succeeds  here,  as  it  does 
elsewhere  —  keeping  all  thing  sweet  and  strong,  from 
the  majestic  ordinances  of  heaven,  to  the  guidance  of  a 
village  school.  It  is  too  true  that  Lord  Melville  in  1808, 
in  his  place  in  the  House  of  Lords,  when  opposing  Mr. 
Wyndham's  most  humane  and  judicious  Army  Bill,  said, 
"  the  worst  men  make  the  best  soldiers  ;  "  and  if  we  look 
back  on  the  history  of  the  army,  the  degradations,  the 
miseries,  and  hardships  of  the  common  soldier,  we  can- 
not help  inferring  that  this  monstrous  dogma  had  been 
even  improved  upon,  so  as  to  reduce  to  their  lowest  the 
characteristics  of  humanity,  and  resolve  his  entire  nature 
into  a  compound  of  strength  and  stupidity.  With  such 
opinions  as  Lord  Melville's  prevailing  in  civil,  and  not 
less  hi  military  life,  it  was  no  easy  matter  to  set  up  as  a 
military  reformer.  If  the  worst  man  made  the  best 
soldier,  it  was  a  contradiction  in  terms  to  think  of  mak- 
ing the  man  in  any  degree  better.  The  converse  was 
the  logical  sequence ;  to  find  the  worst  man,  and  by  all 
means  make  him  a  worser  still.  Things  are  changed, 
and  have  been  changing;  and  that  humane  spirit,  that 
sense  of  responsibility  as  regards  the  happiness  and  wel- 

1  This  -was  not  the  principle  of  one  of  the  greatest  of  men  and  of 
soldiers.  Cicero  says  of  Julius  Caesar,  there  was  never  an  ITO  in  his 
sommands,  but  only  a  VEXI,  as  if  he  scorned  to  be  less  or  more  than 
their  leader. 


DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE.        159 

fare  of  our  fellow-men  on  which  we  have  already  en- 
larged, and  which  is  one  of  the  most  signal  blessings  of 
our  time,  has  penetrated  into  this  region,  and  Lord  Mel 
ville's  dogma  is  in  the  fair  way  of  being  overthrown  and 
reversed.  It  is  now  no  longer  legal  for  a  British  subject 
to  sell  himself,  body  and  soul,  for  life.  For  this  we 
have  mainly  to  thank  Lord  Panmure,  one  of  the  ablest 
and  best  secretaries  the  War  Office  has  ever  seen.  But 
while  we  most  heartily  acknowledge  the  great  services 
of  Lord  Hardinge,  Lord  Grey,  Mr.  Ellice,  Sir  George 
Arthur,  Sir  Charles  Napier,  Colonel  Lindsay,  Lord 
Panmure,  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert,  and  many  others,  in  urg- 
ing and  carrying  out  all  these  ameliorations  and  re- 
forms;  and  while  we  cannot  easily  overrate  the  value 
of  the  labors  of  Lieutenant-Colonel  Tulloch  and  Dr. 
Graham  Balfour  in  working  out  the  vital  statistics  of 
the  army,  and  demonstrating  their  practical  bearing  on 
the  prevention  of  misery  and  crime  and  death,  and  the 
increased  comfort  and  efficiency  of  the  service ;  we  are, 
we  feel  sure,  only  saying  what  every  one  of  these  public- 
spirited  men  will  be  readiest  to  confirm,  that  to  the  late 
Dr.  Henry  Marshall  is  due  the  merit  of  having  been  the 
first  in  this  great  field,  —  the  sower  of  the  seed  —  the 
setter  agoing  of  this  current  of  research  and  reform 
which  has  achieved  so  much.  There  is  not  one  of  these 
many  improvements  which  he  did  not,  in  his  own  quiet, 
but  steady  and  unflinching  way,  argue  for,  and  urge,  and 
commend,  and  prove,  many  years  before  they  were  ac- 
knowledged or  taken  up  by  the  higher  authorities.  We 
find  him,  when  a  mere  lad,  at  the  Cape,  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  century,  making  out  tables  of  the  diseases  of 
the  soldiers,  of  the  comparative  health  of  different  sta- 
Uons  and  ages  and  climates ;  investigating  the  relation 


160        DR.    MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE. 

of  degradation,  ignorance,  crime,  and  ill-usage,  to  the 
efficiency  of  the  army  and  to  its  cost ;  and  from  that 
time  to  the  last  day  of  his  life  devoting  his  entire  ener- 
gies to  devising  and  doing  good  to  the  common  soldier. 
And  all  this,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  without  much  assist- 
ance from  his  own  department  (the  medical),  till  the 
pleasant  time  came  when  the  harvest  was  to  be  reaped, 
and  the  sheaves  taken  victoriously  home. 

"  Have  you  seen  Marshall's  Miscellany  ? "  said  a 
friend  to  Lord  Panmure,  when  he  was  Secretary  at 
"War.  "  Seen  it !  "  exclaimed  he,  "  why,  Marshall's 
book  is  my  Bible  in  all  that  relates  to  the  welfare  of  the 
soldier."  And  it  is  not  less  honorable  to  our  late  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  than  to  Dr.  Marshall,  that  when  pre- 
sented by  the  author  with  a  copy  of  this  book,  his  Lord- 
ship said,  "Your  book  should  be  in  the  hands  of  every 
army  surgeon,  and  in  every  orderly-room  in  the  service." 
Any  man  who  knows  what  the  army  is  and  was,  and 
what  the  prejudices  of  the  best  military  men  often  were, 
—  and  who  has  also  read  thoroughly  the  work  we  refer 
to,  and  has  weighed  well  all  it  is  for,  and  all  it  is  against, 
and  all  that  it  proves,  —  will  agree  with  us  in  saying, 
that  for  Lord  Hardinge  to  express,  and  for  Dr.  Marshall 
to  deserve,  such  a  compliment,  is  no  small  honor  to  both. 

Dr.  Marshall,  to  have  done  so  much  good,  made  the 
least  noise  about  it  of  any  public  man  we  ever  knew. 
He  was  eminently  quiet  in  all  his  ways ;  the  very  re- 
verse of  your  loud  man ;  he  made  no  spasmodic  efforts, 
he  did  nothing  by  fits  or  starts,  nothing  for  effect ;  he 
flowed  on  incredibili  lenitate,  with  a  ceaseless  and  clear 
but  powerful  flow.  He  was  a  philosopher  without  know- 
ing it,  and  without  many  others  knowing  it ;  but,  if  to 
(race  effects  up  to  their  causes,  to  bring  good  out  of  evil^ 


DR.   MARSHALL  AND  MILITARY   HYGIENE.        161 

and  order  out  of  confusion,  to  increase  immensely  the 
happiness  of  his  fellow-men,  be  wisdom,  and  the  love  of 
it,  then  was  this  good  man  a  philosopher  indeed. 

Henry  Marshall  was  born  in  the  parish  of  Kilsyth  in 
1775.  His  father  was  a  man  of  singular  simplicity  and 
worth,  and  besides  his  own  excellent  example,  and  in 
spite  of  his  slender  means,  he  gave  both  his  sons  a  col- 
lege education.  In  May  1803,  Henry  became  surgeon's 
mate  in  the  royal  navy,  a  service  he  left  in  September 
1804 ;  and  in  January  1805  was  appointed  assistant- 
surgeon  to  the  Forfarshire  regiment  of  militia.  In 
April  1806,  he  became  assistant-surgeon  to  the  first  bat- 
talion of  the  89th  regiment,  which  embarked  in  Febru- 
ary 1807  for  South  America,  thence  to  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope  and  Ceylon.  In  May  1809,  he  was  ap- 
pointed assistant-surgeon  to  the  2d  Ceylon  Regiment, 
and  in  April  1813,  was  promoted  to  be  surgeon  of  the 
1st  Ceylon  Regiment.  In  December  of  the  same  year 
he  was  removed  to  the  staff,  but  continued  to  serve  in 
the  island  till  the  spring  of  1821,  when  he  returned 
home ;  and  soon  after  his  arrival  he  was  appointed  to 
the  staff  of  North  Britain,  his  station  being  Edinburgh. 

We  shall  now  give  a  short  account  of  his  principal 
writings,  and  of  the  effect  they  had  in  attaining  the 
great  object  of  his  long  and  active  life,  which,  in  his 
own  words,  was  "  to  excite  attention  to  the  means  which 
may  meliorate  the  condition  of  the  soldier,  and  exalt  his 
moral  and  intellectual  character." 

1817. — "Description  of  the  Laurus  Cinnamomum," 
read  before  the  Royal  Society  at  the  request  of  Sir  Jo- 
seph Banks,  and  published  in  the  Annals  of  Philosophy 
of  that  year. 

1821.  —  "Notes  on  the  Medical  Topography  of  the 
11 


162       DR.   MARSHALL  AND  MILITARY   HYGIENE. 

interior  of  Ceylon,  and  on  the  Health  of  the  Troops 
employed  in  the  Provinces  during  the  years  1815  to 
1820,  with  brief  Remarks  on  the  prevailing  Diseases." 
London,  1821.  8vo,  pp.  228.  The  great  merit  of  this 
little  book  consisted  in  the  numerical  statistics  it  con- 
tains regarding  the  mortality  and  diseases  of  the  troops 
—  a  new  feature  in  medical  works  at  the  time  it  was 
published. 

His  next  publication  was  in  1823.  —  "Observations 
on  the  Health  of  the  Troops  in  North  Britain,  during  a 
period  of  Seven  years,  from  1816  to  1822."  —  London 
Medical  and  Physical  Journal  The  numerical  portion 
of  these  observations  was  an  attempt,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  novel  one,  to  collect  and  arrange  the  facts  illus- 
trative of  the  amount  of  sickness  and  the  ratio  of  mor- 
tality among  a  body  of  troops  for  a  specific  period. 

In  November  1823,  Dr.  Marshall  was  removed  from 
Edinburgh  to  Chatham,  and  in  April  1825,  was  ap- 
pointed to  the  recruiting  depot,  Dublin.  In  1826,  he 
published  "  Practical  Observations  on  the  Inspection  of 
Recruits,  including  Observations  on  Feigned  Diseases." 
Edin.  Med.  and  Surgical  Journal,  vol.  xxvi.  p.  225. 

1828. —  "Hints  to  Young  Medical  Officers  of  the 
Army  on  the  Examination  of  Recruits  and  the  Feigned 
Disabilities  of  Soldiers."  London,  1828.  8vo,  pp.  224. 
The  official  documents  contained  in  this  volume  are  in- 
teresting, in  as  far  as  they  show  the  difficulty  of  the 
duty  of  selecting  recruits,  and  the  very  limited  informa- 
tion the  authorities,  both  military  and  medical,  appear 
to  have  had  on  the  subject.  It  is  full  of  interest  even 
to  the  general  reader,  opening  up  one  of  the  most  sin- 
gular and  most  painful  manifestations  of  human  charac- 
ter, and  affording  the  strongest  proofs  of  the  inherent 


DR.   MARSHALL  AND  MILITARY  HYGIENE.        163 

misery  and  degradation  of  the  life  of  the  British  com- 
mon soldier.  In  reading  it,  it  is  difficult  to  know  which 
to  wonder  most  at  —  the  despair  and  misery  that  must 
prompt,  the  ingenuity  that  can  invent,  and  the  dogged 
resolution  that  can  carry  out  into  prolonged  execution, 
and  under  every  species  of  trial,  the  endless  fictions  of 
every  conceivable  kind  therein  described  ;  or  the  shrewd- 
ness, the  professional  sagacity,  and  the  indomitable 
energy  with  which  Dr.  Marshall  detects,  and  gives  to 
others  the  means  of  detecting,  these  refuges  of  lies. 
This  was  the  first,  and  still  is  the  best  work  in  our  lan- 
guage on  this  subject ;  the  others  are  mere  compilations, 
indebted  to  Dr.  Marshall  for  their  facts  and  practical 
suggestions. 

In  January  1828,  Sir  Henry  (afterwards  Viscount) 
Hardinge  was  appointed  Secretary  at  War.  One  of  the 
numerous  important  subjects  connected  with  the  admin- 
istration of  the  war  department  which  early  engaged 
his  attention  was  the  large  and  rapidly  increasing  pen- 
sion list.  For  a  period  of  several  months  he  labored 
hard  to  obtain  information  on  the  practical  working  of 
the  existing  pensioning  warrants,  chiefly  from  the  un- 
satisfactory documents  found  at  Chelsea  Hospital.  He 
soon  discovered  many  abuses  in  the  system  then  in  oper- 
ation. As  a  means  of  helping  him  to  abate  the  abuses 
in  question,  he  directed  a  Medical  Board  to  assemble,  of 
which  Dr.  Marshall  was  appointed  a  member,  the  spe- 
cific duty  of  the  Board  being  as  follows  :  —  "  For  the 
purpose  of  revising  the  regulations  which  relate  to  the 
business  of  examining  and  deciding  upon  the  cases  of 
Boldiers  recommended  for  discharge  from  the  service." 
'*  The  object  of  the  proposed  inquiry  is  to  ascertain  what 
description  of  disabilities  ought  to  be  pensioned,  and 


164       DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE. 

what  not."     The  pension  list  at  this  time  stood  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

19,065  pensioners,  at  6d.  a  day,  average  age  thirty-one 
years  ;  alleged  causes  of  being  discharged,  in- 
juries or  bad  health. 

16,630  at  9d.  a  day,  for  service  and  disability  combined. 

21,095  at  Is.  a  day,  for  length  of  service  and  wounds. 
1,100  at  Is.  9d.,  blind. 

27,625  no  causes  of  disability  assigned. 


85,515 

The  list  had  increased  greatly  during  a  period  of 
peace,  and  it  was  annually  increasing.  The  mean  rate  of 
pension  was  10|d.,  and  the  annual  amount  £1,436,663 ; 
the  annual  rate  of  mortality  among  the  pensioners  being 
about  four  per  cent. 

During  the  sitting  of  the  Board,  Dr.  Marshall  collected 
some  practical  information  on  the  pensioning  question ; 
and  on  returning  to  Dublin,  in  December  1828,  he  drew 
up  a  comprehensive  scheme  for  pensioning  soldiers,  upon 
what  he  considered  improved  principles.  Under  the 
title  of  "  Cursory  Observations  on  the  Pensioning  of  Sol- 
diers," he  forwarded  his  scheme  to  Lord  Hardinge ;  and 
he  had  the  satisfaction  of  finding  that  a  new  pension 
warrant  was  made,  founded  on  the  same  principles  as  his 
"  Scheme,"  namely,  1st,  length  of  service ;  2rf,  wounds 
received  before  the  enemy ;  3d,  greatly  impaired  health 
after  fifteen  years'  service;  4^,  anomalous  disabilities, 
special  cases,  which  require  to  be  particularly  considered. 
By  Mr.  Wyndham's  Act  of  1806,  every  man  who  was 
discharged  as  disabled  was  entitled  to  a  pension  for  life, 
without  reference  to  the  time  he  had  served  ;  and,  by 
the  subsequent  amendments  and  alterations,  disabilities 


DR.   MARSHALL  AND  MILITARY   HYGIENE.        165 

and  not  service  constituted  the  .chief  claim  for  a  pension. 
This  mode  of  obtaining  a  pension  opened  a  wide  door 
for  fraud  of  various  kinds. 

The  Pensioning  Warrant  of  the  Secretary  at  War 
went  through  a  number  of  editions,  both  in  manuscript 
and  in  print. 

In  1829,  Dr.  Marshall  published  "Observations  on 
the  Pensioning  of  Soldiers."  —  United  Service  Journal, 
1829,  part  ii.  p.  317.  —  This  paper  has  a  peculiar  inter- 
est, inasmuch  as  it  gives  an  account  of  the  frauds  which 
had  been  committed  in  the  army  by  the  erasure  and 
alteration  of  figures,  and  which  had  only  lately  been  dis- 
covered. The  falsification  of  records  by  this  means  was 
found,  upon  investigation,  to  have  been  practised  to  a 
considerable  extent  in  almost  every  regiment  in  the  ser- 
vice. 

1829.  —  "  Historical  Notes  on  Military  Pensions."  — 
United  Service  Journal. 

1830.  —  "Notes    on    Military    Pensions." — United 
Service  Journal. 

Early  in  1830,  Dr.  Marshall  communicated  to  Lord 
Hardinge  a  paper  on  the  abuse  of  intoxicating  liquors 
by  the  European  troops  in  India,  and  on  the  impolicy 
of  uniformly  and  indiscriminately  issuing  spirit  rations 
to  soldiers.  An  abstract  of  this  paper  was  subsequently 
published  under  the  following  title  :  — 

1830.  —  "Observations  on  the  Abuse  of  Spirituous 
Liquors  by  the  European  Troops  in  India,  and  of  the 
Impolicy  of  uniformly  and  indiscriminately  issuing  Spirit 
Rations  to  Soldiers." — Edinburgh  Medical  and  Surgical 
Journal,  vol.  xli.  p.  10. 

Lord  Hardinge  carried  into  effect  the  suggestions 
contained  in  this  paper  with  remarkable  promptitude; 


166        DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY  HYGIENE. 

indeed,  it  would  be  difficult  to  praise  too  highly  his 
Lordship's  conduct  in  this  matter,  whether  in  regard  to 
his  discrimination  in  perceiving  and  appreciating  the 
evils  of  the  usage,  his  firmness  in  abolishing  it  at  once, 
or  his  wisdom  and  courage  in  surmounting  the  preju- 
dices of  a  large  portion  of  all  ranks  in  the  army.  Within 
a  week  after  he  received  it,  he  had  commenced  measures 
to  abolish  the  indiscriminate  issue  of  spirit  rations  to  sol- 
diers on  board  ship.and  on  foreign  stations.  So  long  as 
a  quantity  of  spirits,  amounting  to  about  six  or  seven 
ounces  (in  India  it  was  the  20th  part  of  a  gallon),  formed 
part  of  the  regular  diet  or  daily  ration  of  a  soldier  which 
he  was  obliged  to  swallow  or  to  throw  away,  what  ra- 
tional hope  could  be  entertained  that  the  exertions  of 
commanding  officers,  however  well  directed,  would  have 
much  effect  in  checking  drunkenness  ?  The  indiscrimi- 
nate daily  use  of  spirits  is  not  necessary  for  the  efficiency 
or  health  of  troops  in  any  climate,  and  their  abuse  is 
a  fertile  source  of  disabilities,  diseases,  and  crimes,  both 
moral  and  military.  To  drink  daily  nearly  half  a  pint 
of  spirits  was  then  a  part  of  the  duty  of  a  soldier ;  and 
that  this  duty  might  be  effectually  executed,  it  was  the 
usage  of  the  service,  in  many  stations,  to  have  it  per- 
formed under  the  superintendence  of  a  commissioned 
officer,  who  certified  to  his  commanding  officer  that  he 
had  witnessed  each  man  drink  his  dram  or  ration  of 
spirits.  Perhaps  a  more  successful  plan  for  converting 
temperate  men  into  drunkards  could  not  have  been  in- 
vented. 

During  1829,  Dr.  Marshall  was  attached  to  the  War 
Office,  and  in  1830,  he  was  promoted  to  the  rank  of 
deputy-inspector  of  hospitals  by  Lord  Hardinge.  Here 
ended  his  active  service  in  the  army,  and  he  was  placed 
<m  half -pay. 


DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE.        167 

Shortly  after  the  promulgation  of  the  instructions  for 
the  guidance  of  medical  officers  in  the  duty  of  examin- 
ing recruits,  which  were  drawn  up  by  Dr.  Marshall, 
and  were  the  result  of  a  most  laborious  and  difficult  in- 
quiry, it  occurred  to  Lord  Hardinge,  that  the  publica- 
tion of  this  document,  together  with  the  pensioning 
warrant,  and  other  relative  papers,  accompanied  by  a 
suitable  commentary,  would  be  useful,  in  the  form  of 
a  small  volume,  for  the  information  of  officers  of  the 
army ;  with  this  object,  Dr.  Marshall  published  in  — 

1832.  —  "On  the  Enlisting,  the  Discharging,  and  the 
Pensioning  of  Soldiers,  with  the  Official  Documents  on 
these  Branches  of  Military  Duty."    London,  1832.    8vo, 
pp.  243. 

In  the  summer  of  this  year,  Dr.  Marshall  married 
Anne,  eldest  daughter  of  James  "Wingate,  Esq.  of  West- 
shiels.  This  union  was,  as  we  often  said,  the  best  earthly 
blessing  of  a  long  and  happy  life. 

1833.  — "  Contributions   to   Statistics   of   the  Army, 
with  some  Observations  on  Military  Medical  Returns. 
No.    I."  —  Edinburgh    Medical  and    Surgical  Journal, 
vol.  xl.  p.  36. 

It  would  be  a  work  of  supererogation  for  us  to  say  one 
word  in  favor  of  military  statistics,  as  a  means  of  illus- 
trating the  condition  of  an  army.  For  some  time,  how- 
ever, after  the  publication  of  this  paper,  the  utility  of 
condensing  and  arranging  medical  returns  was  but  very 
partially  recognized ;  and  Dr.  Marshall's  "  array  "  of 
figures  was  laughed  and  sneered  at  by  some  who  ought 
to  have  known  better. 

1833.  —  "Contributions  to  Statistics  of  the  Army. 
No.  II."  —  Edinburgh  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal, 
vol.  xl.  p.  307. 


168        DR.    MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY    HYGIENE. 

1834.  —  "Sketch  of  the  Geographical  Distribution 
of  Diseases."  —  Edinburgh  Medical  and  Surgical  Jour- 
nal, vol.  xxxviii.  p.  330. 

1834.  — "Abstract  of  the  Returns  of  the  Sick  of  the 
Troops  belonging  to  the  Presidency  of  Fort -George, 
Madras,  for  the  years  1827  to  1830." — Edinburgh 
Medical  and  Surgical  Journal,  vol.  xxxix.  p.  133. 

1834.  —  "On  the  Mortality  of  the  Infantry  of  the 
French  Army." — Edinburgh  Medical  and  Surgical  Jour- 
nal, vol.  xlii.  p.  34. 

1835.  —  "  Observations  on  the  Influence  of  a  Tropical 
Climate  upon  the  Constitution  and  Health  of  natives  of 
Great  Britain." — Edinburgh  Medical  and  Surgical  Jour- 
nal, vol.  xliv.  p.  28. 

1835.  —  "Contributions  to  Statistics  of  the  British 
A  my.  No.  III."  —  Edinburgh  Medical  and  Surgicai 
Journal,  vol.  xliv.  p.  353. 

In  1835,  Dr.  Marshall,  along  with  Sir  A.  M.  Tulloch 
(who  has  done  such  excellent  service  since)  was  ap- 
pointed to  investigate  the  statistics  of  the  sickness,  mor- 
tality, and  invaliding  of  the  British  army.  Their  report 
on  the  sickness,  mortality,  and  invaliding  among  the 
troops  in  the  West  Indies  was  laid  before  Parliament 
the  following  year. 

This  report  produced  a  change  which  was  nothing 
short  of  a  revolution  in  this  department  of  military  pol- 
ty ;  it  destroyed  the  old  established  notion  of  seasoning. 
The  period  of  service  in  Jamaica  used  to  be  nine  or  ten 
years  ;  this  is  now  divided  between  it  and  the  Medi- 
terranean stations  and  British  America.  The  reason 
alleged  for  keeping  them  so  long,  in  so  notoriously  un- 
healthy a  station,  was  the  military  and  medical  fallacy, 
that  Europeans  by  length  of  residence  became  "  sea- 


DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY  HYGIENE.        169 

soned."  This  fallacy,  which  had  been  the  source  of  so 
much  misery,  and  crime,  and  death,  and  expense,  was 
completely  dissipated  by  these  statistical  returns,  from 
which  it  was  found  that  (as  in  every  other  case)  mortal- 
ity depended  upon  age,  and  that  young  soldiers  lived 
longer  there  than  older  ones,  however  "  seasoned  "  by 
residence  or  disease.  The  annual  mortality  of  the 
troops  in  Jamaica  was  thirteen  in  the  hundred  by  the 
medical  returns,  but  the  actual  mortality  amounted  to 
about  two  per  cent,  more,  a  mortality  of  which  we  may 
give  some  idea,  by  stating  that  a  soldier  serving  one  year 
in  Jamaica  encountered  as  much  risk  of  life  as  in  six 
such  actions  as  Waterloo,  —  there  one  in  forty  fell,  in 
Jamaica  one  in  seven  annually.  No  wonder  that  the 
poor  soldier,  knowing  that  eight  or  nine  years  must 
elapse  before  he  left  this  deadly  place,  and  seeing  a 
seventh  comrade  die  every  year,  lost  all  hope,  mind  and 
body  equally  broken  down,  and  sank  into  drunkenness 
and  an  earlier  grave.  He  eventually  concluded,  that  it 
is  a  glorious  climate  where  a  man  is  always  "  dry  "  and 
has  always  plenty  to  drink.  Another  evil  pointed  out  by 
this  able  report  was  that  produced  by  the  use  of  salted 
provisions.  This  practice  was  immediately  changed.  It 
also  brought  to  light  a  curious  and  important  fact,  that 
in  the  barracks  situated  at  Maroon  Town,  Jamaica,  2000 
feet  above  the  sea,  the  annual  mortality  was  only  32  per 
1000,  while  at  Up-Park  Camp,  nearly  on  the  level  of 
the  sea,  it  was  140  per  1000.  The  knowledge  of  this 
extraordinary,  but  till  the  report,  undiscovered  fact,1  has 
been  acted  upon  with  eminent  benefit ;  so  much  so,  that, 
had  it  been  known  during  the  seventeen  years  previ- 
ously, the  lives  of  1387  men,  and  £27,740,  might  have 
1  See  Note  at  the  end  of  this  Paper. 


170       DR.   MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY  HYGIENE. 

been  saved.  "We  never  met  with  a  more  remarkable  in- 
stance of  the  practical  effects  of  statistics.1 

1837. — "Contribution  to  Statistics  of  the  Sickness 
and  Mortality  which  occurred  among  the  Troops  em- 
ployed on  the  Expedition  to  the  Scheldt,  in  the  year 
1809."  —  Edinburgh  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal,  vol. 
xlviii.  p.  305. 

1839.  — "  Contribution  to  Statistics  of  Hernia  among 
Recruits  for  the  British,  and  Conscripts  for  the  French 
Army."  —  Edinburgh  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal,  vol. 
1.  p.  15. 

1839.  —  "On  the  Enlisting,  Discharging,  and  Pen- 
sioning of  Soldiers,  with  the  Official  Documents  on 
these  branches  of  Military  Duty."  Second  Edition. 
Edinburgh,  1839. 

1846.  —  "  Military  Miscellany."    8vo.   London,  1846. 

This  most  entertaining  and  effective  book  is  a  com- 
plete epitome  of  its  author's  mind  and  character ;  it  has 
something  of  everything  that  was  peculiar  to  him.  Al- 
though dissuaded  by  his  military  friends  —  with  only 
one  exception  —  from  publishing  it,  as  being  likely  to 
produce  dissatisfaction  in  the  ranks,  and  offend  com- 
manding officers ;  no  such  effect  followed,  but  the  re- 
verse. It  is,  as  its  name  denotes,  not  so  much  a  treatise, 
as  a  body  of  multifarious  evidence,  enabling  any  man  of 
ordinary  humanity  and  sense  to  make  up  his  mind  on 
*he  various  questions  handled  in  it,  —  Recruiting  —  en- 
listment—  moral  and  physicial  qualities  of  recruits  — 
duration  of  engagement  —  suicide  in  the  army,  its  greater 
frequency  than  in  civil  life,  and  the  reason  of  this  — 

1  Any  one  wishing  a  fuller  account  of  this  memorable  experiment 
and  its  results  will  find  it  in  an  admirable  paper  by  Sir  A.  M.  Tul- 
loch,  K.  C.  B.,  read  before  the  Statistical  Society  in  1847. 


DR.   MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE.        171 

punishments  —  rewards — vices  and  virtues  of  soldiers 
—  pensions  —  education;  these,  and  such  like,  are  the 
subjects  which  are  not  so  much  discussed,  as  exhibited 
and  proved.  At  the  time  the  Miscellany  came  out, 
many  things  concurred  in  rapidly  promoting  its  great 
end.  The  public  mind  having  been  enlightened  on  the 
evils  of  flogging  in  the  army,  and  of  perpetual  service, 
was  bestirring  itself  in  its  own  rough  and  vague  but 
energetic  way;  there  was  a  "clamour"  on  these  sub- 
jects ;  Dr.  Fergusson's  eloquent  and  able  though  some- 
what exaggerative  "  Notes  and  Reminiscences  of  Pro- 
fessional Life,"  published  after  his  death,  advocated 
much  the  same  views  as  Dr.  Marshall,  and  three  elabor- 
ate and  powerful  articles  in  the  Times  on  these  two 
books  and  their  subjects,  written  with  great  ability  and 
tact,  had  excited  the  attention  of  the  nation,  when  this 
was  brought  to  its  operative  point,  by  one  of  those  de- 
plorable incidents  out  of  which  not  seldom  comes  imme- 
diate and  great  good  ;  the  sort  of  event  which  beyond 
all  others  rouses  the  British  people  and  makes  it  act  as 
one  man,  and  in  this  case,  fortunately,  they  were  well 
informed  before  being  roused.  The  first  of  the  three 
articles  in  the  Times  appeared  on  the  2d  of  July  1846, 
and  straightway,  —  as  a  practical  lecture  concludes  by 
the  exhibition  of  a  crucial  and  decisive  experiment,  — 
on  the  llth  of  the  same  month  a  soldier  died  at  ITouns- 
low,  apparently  from  the  effects  of  punishment  inflicted 
in  the  previous  month.  This  sealed  the  fate  of  the 
flogging  system.  The  idea  of  Frederick  John  White 
of  the  7th  Hussars,  "a  brave  fellow,  who  walked  away 
whistling,"  and  was  said  to  be  "gentlemanly,  affable, 
and  mild,"  dying  of  flogging  at  John  Bull's  very  door, 
was  too  much  for  John  and  his  family,  and  one  of  the 


172       DR.   MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY  HYGIENE. 

things  he  could  stand  no  longer.  The  Commander-in- 
Chief  instantly  directed  that  henceforth  fifty  lashes 
should  be  the  maximum.  At  the  time,  much  of  this  re- 
sult was  attributed,  in  the  public  prints  and  in  Parlia- 
ment, to  Dr.  Marshall's  book.  Next  session  of  Parlia- 
ment more  was  done  for  bettering  the  lot  of  the  common 
soldier.1  The  present  Lord  Panmure  introduced  a  bill 
into  Parliament,  limiting  the  period  for  which  a  soldier 
enlists  to  twelve  years  in  the  cavalry  and  ordnance,  and 
ten  in  the  infantry,  instead  of  as  formerly  for  life,  which, 
after  considerable  discussion,  was  passed ;  continual  ref- 
erence was  made  in  the  debates  to  the  Miscellany,  and 
its  author  had  the  satisfaction  of  witnessing  the  com- 
pletion of  those  cardinal  ameliorations.  We  cannot 
convey  a  juster  idea  of  this  homely,  unpretending  vol- 
ume, than  in  the  generous  words  of  a  distinguished  Bel- 
gian physician  (M.  Fallot)  :  —  "  C'est  1'ouvrage  d'un 
homme  possedant  parfaitement  la  matiere,  ayant  passe 
la  plus  grande  partie  de  sa  vie  a  etudier  le  caractere, 
les  moeurs  et  les  besoins  des  soldats  au  milieu  desquels 
il  vivait  et  au  bien-etre  desquels  il  avait  voue  son  exist- 
ence. Ayant  autant  d'ele'vation  dans  les  vues  que  d'in- 
dependance  dans  1'esprit,  il  a  aper$u  les  defauts  partout 
ou  ils  existaient,  et  a  eu  le  courage  de  les  mettre  a  nu 
et  de  les  signaler.  A  ceux  qui  craindraient  que  le  me"- 

1  The  sale  of  spirituous  liquors  in  canteens  was  abolished  at  this 
time,  and  with  the  very  best  results.  Colonel  the  Hon.  James  Lind- 
say, M.  P.,  has  the  merit  of  having  contributed  mainly  to  the  removal 
of  this  crying  evil.  His  speech  on  moving  for  an  inquiry  into  the 
canteen  system  is  a  model  of  the  manner  in  which  such  subjects 
Bhould  be  handled  —  clear,  compact,  soldier-like.  He  makes  the  fol- 
.owing  just,  but  often  overlooked  distinction — "  He  believed  it  would 
not  be  difficult  to  show,  that  though  an  habitual  drunkard  and  an  1mb 
itual  drinker  were  two  different  things,  the  one  was  as  great  an  ex 
pense  to  the  country  as  the  other." 


DR.  MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE.        173 

moire  ne  fut  trop  serieux  ou  trop  monotone,  je  dois  dire 
que  la  foule  d'anecdotes  piquantes,  de  citations  heureu^es 
et  opportunes,  dont  le  memoire  est  seme,  reposent  et 
distraient  agreablement  1'esprit  du  lecteur." 

Dr.  Marshall's  last  publication  on  military  subjects 
was  in  1849  —  "Suggestions  for  the  Advancement  of 
Military  Medical  Literature."  These  were  his  parting 
,Vords  for  the  service  he  had  devoted  the  energies  of  a 
iOng  lifetime  to  —  a  sort  of  legacy  bequeathed  to  those 
who  were  going  forward  in  the  same  good  work.  He 
was  then  laboring  under  a  mortal  disease,  one  of  the 
most  painful  and  terrible  to  which  our  flesh  is  heir  —  of 
its  real  nature  and  only  termination  he  was,  with  his 
usual  sagacity,  aware  from  the  first,  and  yet  with  all 
this,  we  never  got  a  kinder  welcome,  never  saw  one 
more  cheerful,  or  more  patient  in  listening  to  what  con- 
cerned only  others.  He  used  to  say,  "  This  is  bad,  very 
bad,  in  its  own  way  as  bad  as  can  be,  but  everything 
else  is  good :  my  home  is  happy  ;  my  circumstances  are 
good ;  I  always  made  a  little  more  than  I  spent,  and  it 
has  gathered  of  course ;  my  life  has  been  long,  happy, 
busy,  and  I  trust  useful,  and  I  have  had  my  fill  of  it;  I 
have  lived  to  see  things  accomplished,  which  I  desired, 
ardently  longed  for,  fifty  years  ago,  but  hardly  hoped 
ever  to  see."  With  that  quiet,  rational  courage,  which 
was  one  of  his  chief  but  hidden  qualities,  he  possessed 
his  soul  in  patience  in  the  midst  of  intense  suffering, 
and  continued  to  enjoy  and  to  use  life  for  its  best  pur- 
poses to  the  last. 

Of  religion,  and  especially  of  his  own  religion,  he  was 
not  in  the  habit  of  speaking  much ;  when  he  did,  it  was 
shortly  and  to  the  purpose,  and  in  a  way  which  made 
every  one  feel  that  the  root  of  the  matter  was  in  him. 


174        DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE. 

His  views  of  God,  of  sin,  and  of  himself,  and  his  relation 
to  his  Maker  and  the  future,  were  of  the  simplest  and 
most  operative  kind.  When  in  Ceylon,  and  living  much 
alone,  away  from  religious  books  arid  ordinances,  and 
religious  talk,  and  controversy,  and  quarrel,  —  away  also 
from  that  religiosity  which  is  one  of  the  curses  of  our 
time,  —  he  studied  his  New  Testament,  and  in  this,  as 
in  every  other  matter,  made  up  his  mind  for  himself. 
Not  that  he  avoided  religious  conversation,  but  he  seemed 
never  to  get  over  the  true  sacredness  of  anything  con- 
nected with  his  own  personal  religion.  It  was  a  favorite 
expression  of  his,  that  religion  resolved  itself  into  won- 
der and  gratitude  —  intelligent  wonder;  humble  and  ac- 
tive gratitude  —  such  wonder  and  such  gratitude  as  the 
New  Testament  calls  forth. 

Dr.  Marshall,  as  may  readily  be  supposed,  was  not 
what  the  world  calls  a  genius ;  had  he  been  one,  he  prob- 
ably would  not  have  done  what  he  did.  Yet  he  was  a 
man  of  a  truly  original  mind ;  he  had  his  own  way  of 
saying  and  doing  everything ;  he  had  a  knack  of  taking 
things  at  first-hand ;  he  was  original,  inasmuch  as  he  con 
trived  to  do  many  things  nobody  else  had  done;  a  sort 
of  originality  worth  a  good  deal  of  "original  genius." 
And  like  all  men  of  a  well-mixed,  ample,  and  genial 
nature,  he  was  a  humorist  of  his  own  and  that  a  very 
genuine  kind;  his  short  stories,  illustrative  of  some  great 
principle  in  morals  or  in  practical  life,  were  admirable 
and  endless  in  number ;  if  he  had  not  been  too  busy 
about  more  serious  matters,  he  might  have  filled  a  vol- 
ume with  anecdotes,  every  one  of  them  at  once  true  and 
new,  and  always  setting  forth  and  pointing  some  vital 
truth.  Curiously  enough,  it  was  in  this  homely  humor 
that  the  strength  aud  the  consciousness  of  strength. 


DR.   MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY  HYGIENE.        175 

which  one  might  not  have  expected  from  his  mild  man- 
ner and  his  spare  and  fragile  frame,  came  out ;  his  sa- 
tire, his  perfect  appreciation  of  the  value  and  size  of 
those  he  had  in  view,  and  his  "  pawky  "  intuition  into 
the  motives  aud  secret  purposes  of  men,  who  little 
thought  they  were  watched  by  such  an  eye,  —  was  one 
of  the  most  striking  and  gravely  comic  bits  of  the  mental 
oicturesque ;  it  was  like  Mind  looking  at  and  taking  the 
measure  and  the  weight  of  Body,  and  Body  standing  by 
grandly  unconscious  and  disclosed ;  and  hence  it  was 
that,  though  much  below  the  average  height,  no  one  felt 
as  if  he  were  little  —  he  was  any  man's  match.  His 
head  and  eye  settled  the  matter;  he  had  a  large,  com- 
pact, commanding  brain,  and  an  eye  singularly  intelli- 
gent, inevitable,  and  calm. 

Dr.  Marshall  .died  on  the  5th  May  1851,  at  Edin- 
burgh, where  he  had  for  many  years  lived.  Though  out 
of  the  service,  he  was  constantly  occupied  with  some 
good  work,  keeping  all  his  old  friends,  and  making  new 
and  especially  young  ones,  over  whom  he  had  a  singular 
power  ;  he  had  no  children,  but  he  had  the  love  of  a 
father  for  many  a  youth,  and  the  patience  of  a  father 
too.  In  his  married  life,  to  use  his  own  words,  "  I'  got 
what  I  was  in  search  of  for  forty  years,  and  I  got  this 
at  the  very  time  it  was  best  for  me,  and  I  found  it  to  be 
better  and  more  than  I  ever  during  these  forty  long 
years  had  hoped  for." 

Had  such  a  man  as  Dr.  Marshall  appeared  in  France, 
or  indeed  anywhere  else  than  in  Britain,  he  would  have 
been  made  a  Baron  at  the  least.  He  did  not  die  the  less 
contented  that  he  was  not ;  and  we  must  suppose,  that 
there  is  some  wise  though  inscrutable  final  cause  why 
our  country,  in  such  cases,  makes  virtue  its  own  and 


176       DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE. 

only  reward,  and  is  leonum  arida  nutrix,  a  very  dry 
nurse  indeed. 

Besides  the  publications  we  have  mentioned,  in  con- 
nection with  military  statistics  and  hygiene,  Dr.  Mar- 
shall published  a  history  and  description  of  Ceylon, 
which,  after  all  the  numerous  works  on  "  the  utmost 
Indian  isle,"  remains  at  once  the  shortest,  the  fullest, 
and  the  best.  He  also  published  on  the  cocoa-nut  tree, 
and  a  sketch  of  the  geographical  distribution  of  disease, 
besides  many  other  occasional  papers,  in  all  of  which  he 
makes  out  something  at  once  new  and  true.  In  the 
well-weighed  words  of  Dr.  Craigie :  "  He  was  the  first 
to  show  how  the  multiplied  experience  of  the  medical 
officers  of  the  British  Army  at  home  and  abroad,  by 
methodical  arrangement  and  concentration,  might  be  ap- 
plied by  the  use  of  computation,  to  furnish  exact  and 
useful  results  in  medical  statistics,  medical  topography, 
the  geographical  relations  of  diseases,  medical  hygiene, 
and  almost  every  other  branch  of  military  medicine. 
Dr.  Marshall  must  indeed  be  regarded  as  the  father  and 
founder  of  military  medical  statistics,  and  of  their  varied 
applications."  We  end  our  notice  of  this  truly  excellent 
public  servant,  with  his  own  dying  words :  "  In  many 
respects,  I  consider  myself  one  of  the  most  fortunate  in- 
dividuals who  ever  belonged  to  the  medical  department 
of  the  army.  Through  a  long  life  I  have  enjoyed  almost 
uninterrupted  good  health,  and  my  duties  have  been  a 
pleasure  to  me.  Having  generally  had  some  literary 
undertaking  on  hand,  more  or  less  connected  with  mill 
tary  hygiene,  I  have  enjoyed  much  intellectual  gratifica- 
tion. '  To  labor  diligently,  and  to  be  content  (says  the 
son  of  Sirach),  is  a  sweet  life.'  My  greatest  delight  has 
been  to  promote  a  melioration  of  the  condition  of  sol 


DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY  HYGIENE.        177 

diers,  and  in  the  prosecution  of  this  important  object,  I 
hope  I  have  done  some  good.  I  have  much  reason  to 
be  grateful  to  Divine  Providence  for  the  many  blessings 
I  have  enjoyed,  and  continue  to  enjoy.  Although  my 
elementary  education  was  extremely  limited,  my  profes- 
sional instruction  defective,  and  my  natural  talents  mod- 
erate, I  have  no  reason  to  complain  of  my  progress  and 
standing  in  the  service.  Every  step  of  advancement 
which  I  gained  in  the  army  was  obtained  without  diffi- 
culty. When  I  look  back  upon  my  progress  in  life,  it 
•seems  to  me  that  I  have  been  led  '  in  a  plain  path,'  and 
that  my  steps  have  been  '  ordered,'  " 

We  had  intended  giving  some  account  of  the  medical 
military  worthies  who  preceded  Dr.  Marshall,  but  we 
have  left  ourselves  no  space. 

Among  them  may  be  reckoned  Sir  John  Pringle,  the 
earliest  and  one  of  the  best ; *  Drs.  Brocklesby,  the 

l  Sir  John  Pringle  was  truly  what  his  epitaph  in  Westminster  Abbey 
calls  him,  egregius  vir  —  a  man  not  of  the  common  herd;  a  man  in  ad- 
vance of  his  age.  He  is  our  earliest  health  reformer,  the  first  who  in 
this  country  turned  his  mind  and  that  of  the  public  to  hygiene  as  a 
part  of  civil  polity.  In  the  Library  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians 
jf  Edinburgh,  there  were  deposited  by  him,  in  1781,  a  year  before  his 
leath,  ten  large  folios  of  MSS.,  entitled  "Medical  Annotations,"  form- 
'ng  the  most  remarkable  record  we  have  ever  seen  of  the  active  intelli- 
gence and  industry  of  a  physician  in  the  course  of  an  immense  London 
practice.  Among  other  valuable  matter,  these  volumes  contain  a 
''Treatise  on  Air,  Climate,  Diet,  and  Exercise,"  as  subjects  concern- 
jig  public  as  well  as  personal  health,  which  indicates,  in  a  very  inter- 
esting manner,  the  infantile  condition  of  this  science  at  that  time,  and 
the  author's  singularly  liberal,  sagacious,  and  practical  opinions.  This 
treatise  is  continued  from  time  to  time  through  many  volumes,  and 
Aiust  have  been  many  years  in  writing.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted, 
that  by  the  terms  of  his  gift  of  these  MSS.,  the  College  is  forbidden 
ever  to  publish  any  of  them.  When  a  history  of  vital  statistics  and 
hygiene  is  written,  as  we  trust  it  may  soon  be,  and  we  know  of  only 
•)ne  man  (Dr.  Farr)  who  can  fulfil  this  task,  this  treatise,  dating  nearly 
12 


178        DR.   MARSHALL   AND  MILITARY   HYGIENE. 

generous  friend  of  Burke  and  Johnson  ;  D.  Monro ;  R 
Somerville ;  R.  Jackson,  whose  system  of  arrangement 
and  discipline  for  the  medical  department  of  the  army 
is  most  valuable  and  judicious,  and  far  in  advance  of  its 
date,  1805 ;  Cheyne,  Lempriere,  and  Fergusson.  All 
these  reformers,  differing  as  they  often  did  in  the  specific 
objects  and  expedients  they  each  had  in  view,  agreed  in 
the  great,  but  then  imperfectly  known  and  recognized, 
principle,  that  prevention  is  not  only  better,  but  easier 
and  cheaper,  than  cure — that  health  is  more  managea- 
ble than  disease  —  and  that  in  military,  as  in  civil  life, 
by  discovering  and  attending  to  the  laws  by  which  God 
regulates  the  course  of  nature,  and  the  health  of  his  ra- 
tional creatures,  immense  evils  may  be  prevented  with 
the  utmost  certainty,  which  evils,  if  once  incurred,  no 
skill  and  art  can  countervail :  in  the  one  case,  nature  in 
her  courses  fights  for,  in  the  other  against,  us ;  —  serious 
odds! 

When  and  how  is  the  world  to  be  cured  of  its  passion 

100  years  back,  will  deserve  its  due,  as  the  herald  of  so  much  after 
good. 

Besides  being,  what  only  one  other  Scotchman,  we  believe,  ever  has 
been  (the  Earl  of  Morton),  President  of  the  Royal  Society,  he  was 
Professor  of  Moral  Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh  ;  and 
his  observations  on  the  diseases  of  the  army,  so  famous  in  his  duv, 
with  his  discourse  on  some  late  improvements  in  preserving  the  health 
of  mariners,  may  still  be  read  with  advantage  for  their  accurate  de- 
scription, their  humane  spirit,  and  plain  good  sense,  and  stand  out  in 
marked  contrast  to  the  error,  ignorance,  and  indifference  then  preva- 
lent in  all  matters  concerning  the  prevention  of  disease.  His  greatest 
glory  in  his  own  day  is  his  least  now,  his  epitaph  bearing  on  its  front 
'hat  he  was  the  man  — 

"  Quern  celcissima  Wallise  Princessa 

Regina  serenissima, 
Ipsius  denique  Regis  Majestaa, 
Medicuin  sibi  comprobavit." 


DR.    MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY  HYGIENE          179 

for  the  game  of  war  ?  As  to  the  when,  we  may  safely 
say  it  is  not  yet  come.  In  her  voyage  down  the  great 
stream,  our  world  has  not  yet  slid  into  that  spacious  and 
blessed  Pacific,  where 

"  Birds  of  calm  sit  brooding  on  the  charmdd  wave." 

We  have  no  more  got  this  length  than  we  have  that  to 
which  a  friend  of  the  author  of  The  New  Moral  World 
so  eagerly  looked  forward,  when  she  asked  him  — 

'  When  shall  we  arrive  at  that  state  of  pudity, 
When  we  shall  all  walk  about  in  our  native  nudity  ?  " 

We  fear  we  cannot  yet  dispense  altogether  either  with 
our  clothes  or  our  cartridges.  We  cannot  afford  to  beat 
all  our  swords  into  ploughshares.  But  we  as  firmly  be- 
lieve that  we  are  on  our  way  to  this,  and  that  the  fight- 
ing peace-men  are  doing  much  good.  The  idea  of  peace, 
as  a  thing  quite  practicable,  is  gaining  the  ear  of  the 
public,  and  from  thence  it  will  find  its  way  into  its 
brain,  and  down  to  its  heart,  and  thence  out  in  act  by 
its  will.  We  have  no  doubt  that  the  time  is  coming 
when,  for  a  great  trading  nation  like  ours,  supplying  a 
world  with  knowledge,  calico,  and  tools,  to  keep  an  im- 
mense army  and  navy  will  be  as  manifestly  absurd  and 
unbusiness-like,  as  it  would  be  for  a  bagman  from  Man- 
chester, or  a  traveller  from  "  The  Row,"  to  make  his 
rounds  among  his  customers,  armed  cap-a-pie,  soliciting 
orders  with  his  circular  in  one  hand,  and  a  Colt's  re- 
volver in  the  other.  As  to  the  how,  chiefly  in  three 
ways :  First,  By  the  commercial  principle  of  profit  and 
loss,  —  of  a  heavy  balance  against,  coming  to  influence 
the  transactions  of  nations,  as  it  has  long  done  those  of 
private  and  social  life  —  free-trade,  mutual  connection 
and  intercourse,  the  proof,  publicly  brought  out,  that  the 


180        DR.   MARSHALL   AND  MILITARY  HYGIENE. 

interest  of  the  body-politic  is  also  that  of  every  one  of 
its  members,  and  the  good  of  the  whole  that  also  spe- 
cially of  each  part  —  the  adoption,  not  merely  in  theory, 
but  in  practice,  of  a  law  of  nations,  by  the  great  leading 
powers,  and  the  submitting  disputes  regarding  territory, 
commerce,  and  all  the  questions  arising  out  of  active 
multifarious  trading  among  the  nations,  to  reason  and 
fixed  rules,  and  settling  them  by  the  arbitration  of  intel- 
ligent humane  men,  instead  of  by  the  discharge  of  a  park 
of  artillery.  Secondly,  By  the  art  of  war  being  by  sci- 
entific discovery  so  advanced  in  the  degree  and  the  im- 
mediateness  of  its  destructiveness,  so  certain  utterly  to 
destroy  one  of  the  sides,  or  it  may  be  both,  that  it  would 
come  to  be  as  much  abolished  among  well-bred,  enlight- 
ened nations  as  the  duel  would  be  among  civilized  men 
were  it  certain  that  one  or  both  of  the  combatants  must 
be  extinguished  on  the  spot.  "  Satisfaction  "  would  not 
be  so  often  asked  by  nations  or  individuals,  and  dissatis- 
faction not  so  often  expressed,  were  this  accomplished. 
Thirdly,  and  chiefly,  By  nations  not  only  becoming 
shrewder  and  more  truly  aware  of  their  own  interests 
and  of  what  "  pays  "  —  or  such  "  dead  shots  "  as  to  make 
the  issue  of  any  war  rapid  and  fatal,  but  most  of  all  by 
their  growing,  in  the  only  true  sense,  better,  —  more 
under  the  habitual  influence  of  genuine  virtue,  more  in- 
formed with  the  knowledge,  and  the  fear,  and  the  love 
of  God  and  of  His  laws. 

Since  finishing  this  paper,  we  have  seen  a  copy  of  the 
new  statistical  report  on  the  sickness  and  mortality  of 
the  British  army,  submitted  on  the  31st  of  March  to  the 
Secretary  at  War,  and  presented  the  other  day  to  Par- 
liament. It  does  infinite  credit  to  the  energy,  and  accu- 
racy, and  judgment,  of  Sir  A.  M.  Tulloch  and  Dr.  Gra- 


DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE.        181 

ham  Balfour,  by  whom  it  has  been  prepared  ;  and  is  one 
of  the  most  valuable  results  yet  obtained  from  that 
method  of  research  of  which  Dr.  Marshall  was,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  originator.  It  is  not  easy  to  make  an 
abstract  of  what  is  itself  the  concentrated  essence  of 
an  immense  number  of  voluminous  reports  —  the  two 
valuable  public  servants  above  mentioned  have  always 
heartily  acknowledged  their  obligations  to  Dr.  Marshall, 
and  they  conclude  their  prefatory  notice  by  saying,— 
"The  death  of  Dr.  Marshall,  inspector-general  of  hos- 
pitals, has  deprived  us  of  the  valuable  aid  previously 
afforded  by  that  officer,  in  the  medical  details,  for  which 
his  long  acquaintance  with  the  statistics  of  his  profession 
so  well  qualified  him."  We  shall  make  a  few  random 
extracts,  to  show  how  well  grounded  Mr.  Sidney  Her- 
bert's statement  is,  that  the  common  soldier  never  was 
better  off  than  now.  The  report  begins  with  enumerat- 
ing the  improvements  in  the  condition  of  the  soldier 
since  their  last  report  in  1841.  We  have  already  men- 
tioned the  chief  of  these.  During  seven  years  upwards 
of  £16,000  have  been  expended  in  the  purchase  of  books 
for  barrack  libraries,  and  it  is  found  that  the  numbers 
who  avail  themselves  of  this  new  source  of  occupation 
are  every  year  on  the  increase,  and  thus  much  of  the 
time  formerly  wasted  in  the  canteen,  to  the  injury  alike 
of  health  and  morals,  is  now  devoted  to  reading.  Great 
improvements  have  been  made  in  the  construction  and 
ventilation  of  barracks  and  the  means  of  ablution.  The 
good-conduct  pay  is  found  to  work  excellently.  Prior 
to  1837,  the  maximum  of  pay  to  a  private  could  never 
exceed  Is.  2d.  per  day  in  the  infantry,  Is.  5d.  in  the 
cavalry,  exclusive  of  beer  -  money,  even  after  twenty 
years'  service  and  the  best  character;  but  by  the  opera- 
tion of  the  good-conduct  warrants,  a  soldier  by  the  same 


182        DR.    MARSHALL   AXD   MILITARY   HYGIENE. 

service  may  now  obtain  Is.  4d.  a  day  in  infantry,  and 
Is.  7d.  in  cavalry.  This  has  greatly  added  to  the  com 
forts  of  old  soldiers,  some  of  whom,  being  married,  could 
only  support  their  families  by  restricting  their  personal 
expenditure  to  an  extent  hardly  compatible  with  health 
The  evening  meal  of  coffee  or  tea  and  bread,  which  had 
been  adopted  by  a  few  corps  in  1837,  is  now  general 
and  with,  as  might  be  expected,  the  best  results.  Suicide 
in  the  cavalry  is  more  than  double  that  in  the  infantry, 
being  annually  as  5.8  in  every  10,000  is  to  2.2.  This 
seems  strange,  as  the  cavalry  is  a  more  popular  service 
and  better  paid,  and  the  men  of  a  higher  class,  and,  one 
would  think,  the  duties  more  interesting.  The  report 
gives  the  conjecture,  that  this  may  arise  from  so  many 
of  them  being  men  of  broken  fortunes,  who  enlist  when 
rendered  destitute  by  extravagance.  In  the  Foot  Guards 
suicide  is  very  rare,  but  the  mortality  from  disease  is 
very  great.  The  deaths  among  them  annually  per  1000 
are  at  the  rate  of  20.4;  in  the  infantry  of  the  line,  17.9; 
cavalry,  13.6  ;  and  in  the  civil  population  of  large  towns, 
11.9.  In  the  household  cavalry  the  mortality  is  still 
less  :  owing  to  their  living  better  lives,  and  having  larger 
pay  and  more  comfort,  and  less  exposure  and  better  ac- 
commodation, their  average  per  1000  is  only  11.1  ;  but 
this  result  is  also  materially  owing  to  a  weeding  process, 
by  which  those  who  exhibit  traces  of  constitutional  dis- 
ease, or  who  are  injuring  their  health  and  bringing  dis- 
credit on  the  corps  by  dissipation,  are  from  time  to  time 
discharged  —  216  of  these  tnauvais  sujets  having  been 
weeded  out  during  the  ten  years  to  which  the  report  re- 
fers- 

"  Such  a  weeding,"  the  reporters  very  truly  observe, 
"  cannot  fail  to  have  a  very  beneficial  effect  both  on 
fheir  moral  and  physicial  condition,  and,  if  practicable, 


DR.   MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE.        183 

would  be  of  vast  benefit  also  in  other  branches  of  the 
service."  The  difficulty  originates  in  this,  that  in  the 
line  the  rate  of  pay  is  less  than  the  average  wages  of 
the  laboring  classes,  while  in  the  Horse  Guards  it  is 
greater. 

Under  the  head  of  fevers,  we  find  this  extraordinary 
proof  of  the  fatality  of  typhus  in  the  troops  of  the 
United  Kingdom  :  —  in  the  cavalry,  of  those  attacked,  1 
in  3f  dies;  in  the  Foot  Guards,  1  in  3 £ ;  in  the  infan- 
try, 1  in  4 — which  is  quite  as  high  as  the  mortality  of 
the  remittent  or  yellow  fever  in  the  West  Indies. 

Nothing  can  be  more  satisfactory  than  the  report  on 
corporal  punishments. 

"  This  description  of  punishment  has  now  become  so 
rare,  that  in  the  Foot  Guards  only  one  instance  has  oc- 
curred in  every  1000  men  annually;  in  the  Regiments 
of  the  Line  the  proportion  was  five  times  as  great.  The 
large  number  of  recruits  in  the  latter,  particularly  after 
their  return  from  foreign  service,  may  be  assigned  as 
one  cause  for  this  difference,  as  also  their  being  dispersed 
over  the  country,  and  in  many  instances  in  quarters 
where  no  facilities  exist  for  imprisonment.  The  estab- 
lishment of  military  prisons,  to  which  offenders  may  be 
sent  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  has  of  late  provided 
a  remedy  for  this,  which  will  be  likely  to  render  the 
contrast  less  striking  in  future  years.  The  admissions 
in  the  Dragoon  Guards  and  Dragoons,  are  3  per  1000 
annually,  being  a  mean  between  the  Foot  Guards  and 
Infantry  of  the  Line. 

"  We  have  no  means  of  comparing  the  proportion  dur- 
ing the  period  included  in  this  report  with  that  of  the 
previous  seven  years,  except  for  the  Cavalry,  in  which 
will  be  found  a  decrease  in  the  admissions  from  8  to  3 
oer  1000  of  the  mean  strength  annually;  so  rare,  in- 


184       DR.   MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE. 


deed,  is  this  description  of  punishment  in  the  present 
day,  that  it  may  almost  be  considered  extinct,  except  as 
regards  a  few  iucorrigibles,  who  are  unfortunately  to 
be  found  in  the  ranks  of  every  regiment,  and  who  are 
probably  equally  numerous  in  civil  life.  The  following 
Table  exhibits  the  gradual  decrease  in  this  description 
of  punishment  among  the  several  classes  of  troops  i» 
this  country  for  each  year  since  1837  :  — 


Number  punished. 

l.S"7 

ua 

1811 

ISKI 

1841 

IS  12 

isr: 

1844  ;  1845 

isWjSi 

Dragoon   Guards  and  \ 
Dragoons.     .    .    .    .  / 

u 

14 

U 

17 

24 

U 

7 

28 

u:; 

11 

138 

Foot  Guards  

4 

3 

7 

3 

2 

4 

5 

5 

(i 

1 

40 

Infantry  of  the  Line,  . 

88 

U 

Be 

« 

56 

59 

76 

1D7 

un 

a 

768 

Ratio  per  1000  punisherl. 

Dragoon  Guards   and  \ 
Dragoons,     .    .    .    .  / 

2.5 

2.7 

5.5 

.'1.2 

4.5 

3.2 

1.3 

4..1) 

8.8 

8.0 

3.4 

Foot  Guards,   .... 

.0 

1.0 

8.9 

.9 

.6 

U 

1.0 

1.0 

1.2 

.2 

1.0 

Infantry  of  the  Line,  . 

5.7 

6.9 

.V.I 

4.U 

4.6 

4.:j 

3.8 

4.:; 

0.!) 

1.4 

4.8 

"  This  reduction  in  corporal  punishment  extends  not 
merely  to  the  troops  at  home,  but  to  the  whole  Army, 
as  will  be  seen  by  the  following  Summary,  prepared 
from  the  returns  forwarded  annually  to  the  Adjutant- 
General's  Department  from  every  Regiment  in  the  Ser- 
vice :  — 


Years. 

Effective 
Strength,  in 
each  Year. 

Sentenced  to 
Corporal 
Punishment. 

Ratio  per  1000 
Sentenced  to 
Corporal 
Punishment. 

1838 

96,907 

988 

10.2 

1839 
1840 

103,152 
112,653 

935 
931 

9.1 
8.3 

1841 
1842 
1843 

116,369 
120,313 
123,452 

866 
881 
700 

7.4 
7.3 
5.6 

1844 

125,105 

695 

5.5 

1845 

125,252 

696 

5.5 

1846 

126,501 

519 

4.1 

DR.   MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE.       185 

"Thus,  instead  of  10  men  in  every  1000  throughout 
the  army  having  undergone  corporal  punishment,  as 
was  the  case  in  1838,  the  proportion  in  1846  was  only 
4  per  1000.  And  not  only  has  there  been  this  great 
reduction  in  the  frequency,  but  a  corresponding  altera- 
tion has  taken  place  in  the  severity  also.  Even  so  late 
as  1832,  the  number  of  lashes  which  might  be  awarded 
by  a  General  Court-Martial  was  unlimited,  and  in  1825, 
it  is  on  record  that  one  man  was  sentenced  to  1900,  of 
which  he  received  1200.  From  1832  to  1837,  the  maxi- 
mum number  of  lashes  inflicted  by  the  sentence  of  such 
Courts  became  gradually  reduced  as  follows :  — 

1832         1833         1834         1835         1836         i837 


800  500  600  500  400  200 

"After  1836  no  higher  number  could  be  awarded, 
even  by  a  General  Court-Martial,  than  200  lashes ; 
while  a  District  Court-Martial  was  limited  to  150,  and  a 
Regimental  one  to  100.  Since  1847  the  maximum  of 
this  description  of  punishment  has  been  limited  to  50 
lashes ;  but  the  effect  of  that  restriction  on  the  admis- 
sions into  hospital  will  fall  to  be  considered  rather  in  a 
subsequent  report  than  on  the  present  occasion. 

"  When  this  amelioration  commenced,  grave  appre- 
hensions were  entertained  that  it  would  give  rise  to  such 
relaxation  of  discipline  as  to  cause  a  considerable  in- 
crease in  the  description  of  offences  for  which  corporal 
punishment  had  usually  been  awarded,  and  that  trans- 
portation and  capital  punishment  would  become  more 
frequent;  but  never  were  apprehensions  less  warranted 
by  the  result,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  following  abstract 
of  the  Table  prepared  from  the  Adjutant-General's  Re- 
turn, No.  xn.  of  Appendix  :  — 


186        DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE. 

"In  1838,  out  of  96,907  men,  there  were  9944 
Courts-Martial;  441  general,, and  4813  district;  sen- 
tenced to  death,  14;  transportation,  221;  —  while  in 
1846,  out  of  126,591,  there  were  9212  Courts-Martial, 
whereof  there  were  200  general  and  3959  district ;  sen- 
tenced to  death,  1 ;  transportation  114." 

All  this  has  occurred  without  any  relaxation  of  dis- 
cipline, the  army  never  having  been  in  a  more  efficient 
state  than  at  present. 

This  paper  was  written  in  1853.  Since  that  time 
much  has  been  done  in  carrying  out  genuine  army  re- 
form and  hygiene.  The  Crisaean  "War,  with  its  glory 
and  its  havoc,  laid  bare  and  made  intolerable  many 
abuses  and  wants.  Above  all,  it  fixed  the  eyes  of  their 
country  on  the  miseries,  the  wrongs,  and  the  virtues  of 
the  common  soldier.  Whatever  may  be  said  by  history 
of  our  skill  in  the  art  of  war,  as  displayed  during  that 
campaign,  one  thing  was  tried  and  not  found  wanting  in 
that  terrible  time  —  the  stoutness,  the  endurance,  the 
"  bottom,"  of  our  race,  —  what  old  Dr.  Cains  calls  "  the 
olde  manly  hardnes,  stoute  courage,  and  peinfulnes  of 
Englande."  l 

We  need  not  say  how  much  more  the  nation  loved 
and  cared  for  these  noble  fellows,  when  it  saw  that  to 
these,  the  cardinal  virtues  of  a  soldier,  were  added,  in  so 
many  instances,  the  purest  devotion,  patience,  intelli- 
gence, and  a  true  moral  greatness.  It  is  the  best  test, 
as  it  is  the  main  glory  and  chief  end  of  a  true  civiliza- 
tion, its  caring  for  the  great  body  of  the  people.  This 
it  is  which  distinguishes  our  time  from  all  others,  —  and 
the  common  soldier  is  now  sharing  in  this  movement, 
which  is  twice  blessed. 

1    From  his   "Booke  or  Cotinseil   against  the  disease    called   th« 
Sweate,  made  by  Jhou  Caius,  Doctour  hi  Phisicke,  1552." 


DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE.        187 

But  all  great  and  true  generals,  from  King  David, 
Hannibal,  Caesar,  Cromwell,  the  great  Frederic,  etc., 
down  to  our  own  Sir  Colin,  have  had  their  men's  com- 
forts, interests,  and  lives  at  heart.  The  late  Lord  Dun- 
fermliue  —  magni  parentis  filius  haud  degener  —  when 
speaking,  with  deep  feeling  and  anger,  to  the  writer 
about  the  sufferings  of  the  men,  and  the  frightful  blun- 
ders in  the  Crimea,  told  the  following  story  of  his  father, 
the  great  and  good  Sir  Ralph  Abercromby.  After  his 
glorious  victory,  the  dying  general  was  being  carried  on 
a  litter  to  the  boat  of  the  "  Foudroyant,"  in  which  he 
died.  He  was  in  great  pain  from  his  wound,  and  could 
get  no  place  to  rest.  Sir  John  Macdonald  (afterwards 
adjutant-general)  put  something  under  his  head.  Sir 
Ralph  smiled  and  said,  "  That  is  a  comfort ;  that  is  the 
very  thing.  What  is  it,  John  ?  "  "  It  is  only  a  soldier's 
blanket,  Sir  Ralph."  "  Only  a  soldier's  blanket,  Sir !  " 
said  the  old  man,  fixing  his  eye  severely  on  him.  "  Whose 
blanket  is  it  ?  "  "  One  of  the  men's."  "  I  wish  to  know 
the  name  of  the  man  whose  this  blanket  is ; "  —  and 
everything  paused  till  he  was  satisfied.  "  It  is  Duncan 
Roy's  of  the  42d,  Sir  Ralph."  "  Then  see  that  Duncan 
Roy  gets  his  blanket  this  very  night ; "  and,  wearied  and 
content,  the  soldier's  friend  was  moved  to  his  death- 
bed. "  Yes,  Doctor,"  said  Lord  Dunfermline,  in  his 
strong,  earnest  way,  "  the  whole  question  is  in  that 
blanket  —  in  Duncan  getting  his  blanket  that  very 
night." 

I  cannot  conclude  these  remarks  more  fitly,  than  by 
quoting  the  following  evidence,  given  before  the  Com- 
missioners on  the  sanitary  state  of  the  Army,  by  Dr. 
Balfour,  the  worthy  pupil  of  Dr.  Marshall,  and  now 
medical  officer  of  the  Royal  Asylum,  Chelsea ;  any  man 


188       DR.   MARSHALL   AXD   MILITARY  HYGIENE. 

may  see  from  it  what  good  sense,  good  feeling,  and  san- 
itary science,  may  accomplish  and  prevent. 

"  On  the  retirement  of  Dr.  Marshall,  I  was  associated 
with  Colonel  Tulloch  in  the  preparation  of  the  subse- 
quent reports.  In  the  course  of  that  duty  I  was  much 
struck  with  the  great  amount  of  mortality  generally,  and 
the  large  proportion  of  it  which  appeared  to  be  caused 
by  preventible  disease.  I  subsequently  had  the  oppor- 
tunity of  verifying  my  opinion  on  this  point,  by  watch- 
ing the  results  which  followed  the  adoption  of  various 
sanitary  measures  which  we  recommended  in  our  report, 
and  which  were  carried  out  to  a  greater  or  less  extent. 
The  results  obtained  from  these  changes  fully  confirmed 
my  previous  opinions,  and  led  me  to  continue  to  make 
the  subject  my  special  study. 

"  Is  the  present  diet  of  the  soldier  well  calculated  to 
produce  this  effect? —  I  think  not;  it  would  scarcely  be 
possible  to  devise  anything  worse  calculated  for  the  pur- 
pose, than  the  diet  of  the  soldier  was  when  I  first  joined 
the  service.  He  had  then  two  meals  a  day,  breakfast 
and  dinner ;  and  the  period  between  dinner  and  break- 
fast the  following  day  was  nineteen  hours.  His  dinner 
consisted  of  perpetual  boiled  beef  and  broth.  Subse- 
quently the  introduction  of  the  evening  meal,  which  had 
been  pressed  upon  the  attention  of  the  military  authori- 
ties by  the  medical  officers  for  many  years,  effected  a 
very  great  improvement.  In  other  respects,  his  diet,  as 
laid  down  by  regulation,  continues  the  same  as  at  that 
period.  It  is  monotonous  to  a  degree.  I  have  fre- 
quently seen,  in  a  barrack-room,  soldiers,  and  especially 
.he  older  ones,  leave  the  broth  untouched. 

"Would  it  be  possible  to  improve  the  soldiers'  diet 
Uy  infusing  into  it  greater  variety  ?  —  I  know  practically 


DR.  MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE.        189 

it  is  quite  possible  to  do  so.  When  I  was  appointed  to 
the  Royal  Military  Asylum,  I  found  the  system  of  feed- 
ing the  boys  pretty  much  the  same  as  that  in  the  army, 
but  not  quite  so  monotonous,  as  they  had  baked  mutton 
on  Sundays,  suet  pudding  three  days  in  the  week,  and 
boiled  beef  on  the  other  three  days  ;  the  meat  was  al- 
ways boiled,  but  they  did  not  get  broth,  the  liquor  being 
thrown  away.  They  had  abundance  of  food,  their  din- 
ner consisting,  on  meat  days,  of  eleven  ounces  of  meat, 
without  bone,  which  is  more  than  is  given  to  the  soldier ; 
but  they  did  not  eat  it  with  relish,  and  quantities  of  food 
were  taken  away  to  the  hog-tub.  The  boys  were  pale 
and  feeble,  and  evidently  in  a  very  low  state  of  health. 
Mr.  Benjamin  Phillips,  a  very  high  authority  on  scrof- 
ulous disease,  told  me,  that  when  he  examined  the 
Bchool,  while  engaged  in  preparing  his  work  on  scrofula 
for  publication,  he  found  the  boys  lower  in  point  of 
physique  than  almost  any  school  he  had  examined,  even 
including  those  of  the  workhouses.  After  a  careful  ex- 
amination of  the  dietaries  of  almost  all  the  principal 
schools  established  for  children  in  England  and  Scotland, 
I  prepared  a  scale  of  diet,  which  was  sanctioned  by  the 
Commissioners  in  December  1848,  and,  with  a  few  slight 
modifications,  is  now  in  use  at  the  asylum.  The  chief 
points  I  kept  in  view  were,  to  give  a  sufficient  amount 
of  food  in  varied  and  palatable  forms,  and  without  long 
intervals  of  fasting.  The  following  are  the  old  and  the 
present  scales  of  dietaries :  — 


190       DR.   MARSHALL  AND   MILITARY  HYGIENE. 


"ROYAL  MILITARY  ASYLUM,   CHELSEA. 
"DIET  TABLE  OF  THE  BOYS  OF  THE  ASYLUM  IN  1848. 


Davs  of 
Week. 

Breakfast  at 

8  A.  H. 

Dinner  at 

1  P.  M. 

Supper  at 

6  P.  M. 

Sundav     .     ") 
Tuesday    . 
and 
Thursday       J 

Cocoa  ft  oz. 
Susjar  5  oz. 
Milk    jgill 
Bread  5  oz. 

Beef      .    .    11  oz. 
Potatoes     .      8    " 
Bread    .     .       5    " 
Table-beer        i  pt. 

Bread 
5  oz. 
Milk 
Jipt- 

Monday    .     1 
Wednesday     1 
and 
Friday       .     J 

Ditto     .    .     • 

Suet       .     .      2  oz. 
Flour     .     .      8    " 
Potatoes     .       8    " 
Bread    .     .      5    " 
Table-beer       J  pt. 

Do. 

Saturday  . 

••••I 

Rt.  Mutton     11  oz. 
Potatoes     .       8    " 
Bread    .     .       5    " 
Beer      .    .      \  pt. 

Do. 

Children  under  eight  years  of  age  have  8  oz.  of  meat  instead  of  11  oz.,  and 
4  oz.  of  bread  instead  of  5  oz 

"  Did  the  improvement  in  the  dietary  greatly  increase 
its  cost? —  On  the  contrary,  it  saved  nearly  £  300  a  year 
in  the  feeding  of  the  establishment.  By  introducing  a 
greater  variety,  the  boys  took  the  whole  of  their  food 
with  relish,  and  I  was  able  to  get  them  into  good  condi- 
tion by  distributing  the  same  amount  of  meat  over  seven 
days  that  they  previously  had  in  four. 

"Were  the  results  satisfactory?  —  The  results  were 
far  beyond  my  expectation.  Comparing  the  sickness  and 
mortality  in  the  establishment  for  the  ten  years  previous 
to  my  appointment,  and  for  the  eight  years  and  a  half 
that  have  passed  since  these  alterations  were  introduced, 
I  find  that  the  sickness  has  been  reduced  by  about  one- 
third,  and  the  annual  mortality  has  fallen  from  9.7  per 
1000  of  the  strength  on  the  average  of  ten  years  to  4.9 


DR.   MARSHALL   AND   MILITARY   HYGIENE.        191 
"DIET  TABLE  OF  THE  BOYS  OF  THE  ASYLUM  IN  JULY  1857. 


Days  of 
Week. 

Breakfast  al 

8  A.M. 

Dinner  at  1  P.  M. 

At  half- 
pastSp.M. 

Supper 
at 

8  P.M. 

Sunday 

Cocoa  i  oz. 
Sugar  |  " 
Mi'lk    |gill 
Bread  5  oz. 

Irish      (bCfto-8   J^ 

stew      (onions       i  " 
Pud-     |  flour    .     2   " 
ding      I  suet     .     i   " 
Bread       .     .     .  2|   " 

!  Bread 

f°* 

Bread 
5  oz. 
Milk 
ipt. 

r 

Boiled  Beef       •    6  oz. 

] 

Monday 

Broth  .     .     .     .     \  pt. 
Greens     ...     6  oz. 

" 

« 

, 

Bread       .     .     .  2J   " 

J 

r 

Roast  mutton    .     6  oz. 
Yorkshire  I  flour    4   " 

| 

Tuesday 

... 

; 

pudding   (  suet    i   " 
Bread     .     .     .     2§  " 

J 

]•.•  j.      (  beef     .     6  oz. 

Wednesday 

. 

,  '        <  potatoes  6    " 
(  onions      i  " 

it 

u 

Bread       .     .     .  2|  " 

Roast  mutton    .     8  oz. 

Thursday 

... 

Rice      (  rice      ,     2  oz. 
pud-     <  milk    .    i  pt. 
ding       (  sugar  .     I  oz. 

« 

« 

Stewed  beef      .    6  oz. 

] 

Frid&v 

Rice     ....     3   " 

" 

u 

1  reacle     .     .     .    i   " 
Bread      .     .     .  2|   " 

I 

Boiled  beef  .     .     6  oz. 

Saturday 

Potatoes        .     .     6    " 

tt 

1 
(I 

Bread  .     .     .     .  2|  oz. 

Children  under  eight  to  have  4  02.  of  meat  instead  of  6  oz. 

per  1000  on  the  average  of  eight  years  and  a  half.  This 
is  not  entirely  attributable  to  the  change  of  diet,  though 
that  was  a  most  important  means.  At  the  same  time 
there  were  other  improvements  introduced,  such  as  in 


192       DR.   MARSHALL   AXD   MILITARY   HYGIENE. 

creased  space  in  the  dormitories,  improved  ventilation, 
and  abundant  means  of  cold  bathing  —  all  of  which  are 
most  important  elements  in  preserving  health. 

"  I  may  mention  another  point  with  regard  to  health, 
that  on  the  average  of  the  ten  years  the  proportion  of  boys 
reported  unfit  for  military  service  by  the  surgeon  was 
12.4  per  1000  annually,  principally  on  account  of  scrof- 
ulous cicatrices  on  the  neck  that  would  have  prevented 
them  wearing  the  military  stock,  and  during  the  eight 
years  and  a  half  it  has  been  reduced  to  4.55  per  1000. 
It  is  now  very  little  more  than  one-third  of  what  it  used 
to  be."  

NOTE -P.  169. 

EXTRACT  from  a  work  entitled  "  Plans  for  the  Defence  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland,  by  Lieutenant-Colonel  Dirom,  D.  Q.  M.  G.  in 
North  Britain,  1797." 

"  In  the  island  of  Jamaica,  iu  the  West  Indies,  where  the  troops  are 
generally  unhealthy  in  the  garrisons  along  the  coast,  and  were  particu- 
larly so  in  the  years  1750  and  1751,  —  a  calamity  doubly  alarming,  as 
the  island  was  threatened  with  an  attack  by  the  combined  forces  of 
France  and  Spain,  — the  late  eminent  Sir  Alexander  Campbell  deter- 
mined to  try  a  new  experiment  for  the  accommodation  of  the  troops. 
He  chose  an  elevated  situation  on  the  mountains  behind  Kingston, 
called  Stony  Hill,  where  there  was  good  water,  a  free  circulation  of 
air,  and  a  temperature  of  climate  in  general  ten  degrees  cooler  than  in 
the  low  country  along  the  coast.  The  wood,  which  was  cleared  from 
the  hill,  and  the  soil,  which  was  clay,  were  the  chief  materials  used  in 
constructing  the  barracks.  The  19th  and  38th  Regiments  were  sent 
there  on  their  arrival  from  America,  and  ground  was  allotted  them  for 
gardens.  They  enjoyed  a  degree  of  robust  health  very  unusual  in  that 
climate.  When  not  upon  duty  or  under  arms,  they  were  employed  in 
their  gardens,  or  in  amusements,  the  whole  day  long.  Their  wives  and 
children  enjoyed  eqnal  happiness  ;  and  in  the  course  of  two  years,  this 
military  colony,  for  so  it  appeared,  had  not  at  any  time  a  greater,  if 
even  so  great,  a  proportion  of  men  sick  as  they  would  have  had  in 
Europe  ;  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  during  that  time  they  had 
nearly  as  many  children  born  in  the  regiment  as  they  had  lost  men  by 
death." 

The  author  was  at  this  time  adjutant-general  in  Jamaica. 


ART  AND  SCIENCE. 


Ilepl  yeveffiv  rex^n  —  *•«/>*  ^b  &v  tirier-fiM-  —  AKIST.  AN.  POST 
ii.  xix.  4. 


©wptlTiKW  p.\v  (hriaThws}  re'Aoy  dX^eta-  TrpaKTJKqs  5'  ?7por.— 
AEIST. 

Per  speculativam  scimus  ut  sciamus  ;  per  practicam  scimus  vt 
operemur.  —  AVBRKOES. 

13 


ART  AND  SCIENCE. 

E  give  these  thoughts  with  this  caution  to  our 
readers  as  well  as  to  ourselves,  that  they  do 
not  run  them  out  of  breath.     There  is  always 
a  temptation  to  push  such  contrasts  too  far.     In  fact, 
they  are   more   provocatives   to   personal   independent 
thought  than  anything  else ;  if  they  are  more,  they  are 
mischievous.     Moreover,  it  must  always  be  remembered 
that  Art,  even  of  the  lowest  and  most  inarticulate  kind, 
is  always  tending  towards  a  scientific  form — to  the  dis- 
covery and  assertion  of  itself ;  and  Science,  if  it  deserves 
the   name,  is  never  absolutely  barren,  but  goes  down 
into    some   form   of   human   action  —  becomes   an  art. 
The  two  run  into  each  other.     Art  is  often  the  strong 
blind  man,  on  whose  shoulders  the  lame  and  seeing  man 
is  crossing  the  river,  as  in  Bewick's  tail-piece.     No  arts- 
man  is  literally  without  conscious  and  systematized,  se- 
lected knowledge,  which  is  science  ;    and  no  scientific 
man  can  remain  absolutely  inoperative ;  but  of  two  men 
one   may   be  predominantly  the  one,   and  another  the 
other.     The   word    Science,   in    what  follows,  is  used 
mainly  in   the  sense  of  information,  as  equivalent  to  a 
body  of  ascertained  truths  —  as  having  to  do  with  doc- 
trines.    The  word  Art  is  used  in  the  sense  of  practical 
knowledge   and   applied  power.     The  reader  will  find 
some   excellent  remarks  on  this  subject,  in  Thomson's 
Laws    of  Thought,   Introduction,  and  in  Mill's  Logic, 
book  vi.  chap.  xi. 


196  ART   AND   SCIENCE. 

IN  MEDICINE, 

ART  SCIEXCB 

Looks   to   symptoms   and   occa-    Looks  to  essence  and  cause. 


sions. 


Is  therapeutic  and  prognostic. 


Is  diagnostic. 


Has  a  method.  Has  a  system. 

Is  ante  mortem.  Is  post  mortem. 

Looks    to    function  more    than    Looks  tfce  versa. 
structure. 


Runs  for  the  stomach-pump. 

Submits  to  be  ignorant  of  much. 
Acts. 


Studies  the  phenomena  of  poison- 
ing. 

Submits  to  be  ignorant  of  nothing. 
Speaks. 


Science  and  Art  are  the  offspring  of  light  and  truth, 
of  intelligence  and  will ;  they  are  the  parents  of  philos- 
ophy —  that  its  father,  this  its  mother.  Art  conies  up 
out  of  darkness,  like  a  flower,  — is  there  before  you  are 
aware,  its  roots  unseen,  not  to  be  meddled  with  safely ; 
it  has  grown  from  a  seed,  itself  once  alive,  perishing  in 
giving  birth  to  its  child.  It  draws  its  nourishment  from 
all  its  neighborhood,  taking  this,  and  rejecting  that,  by 
virtue  of  its  elective  instinct  knowing  what  is  good  for 
it ;  it  lives  upon  the  debris  of  former  life.  It  is  often  a 
thing  without  a  name,  a  substance  without  an  articulate 
form,  a  power  felt  rather  than  seen.  It  has  always  life, 
energy  —  automatic  energy.  It  goes  upon  its  own  feet, 
and  can  go  anywhere  across  a  country,  and  hunts  more 
by  scent  than  sight.  Science  goes  upon  wheels,  and 
must  have  a  road  or  a  rail.  Art's  leaves  and  stem  may 
be  harsh  and  uncomely ;  its  flower  —  when  its  does 
flower  —  is  beautiful,  few  things  in  this  world  more  so. 
Science  comes  from  the  market ;  it  is  sold,  can  be  meas- 
ured and  weighed,  can  be  handled  and  gauged.  It  is 
full  of  light ;  but  is  lucid  rather  than  luminous ;  it  is,  at 


ART  AND   SCIENCE.  197 

its  best,  food,  not  blood,  much  less  muscle  —  the  fuel, 
not  the  fire.  It  is  taken  out  of  a  nursery,  and  is  planted 
as  men  plant  larches.  It  is  not  propagated  by  seed  ; 
rather  by  bud,  often  by  cutting.  Many  stick  in  leafy 
branches  of  such  trees,  and  wonder,  like  children,  why 
they  don't  grow;  they  look  well  at  first,  "but  having 
no  root  they  wither  away."  You  may  cover  a  hill-side 
with  such  plantations.  You  must  court  the  sowing  of 
#he  winds,  the  dropping  of  the  acorns,  the  dung  of  birds, 
the  rain,  the  infinite  chances  and  helps  of  time,  before 
you  can  get  a  glen  feathered  with  oak-coppice  or  birks.  , 
You  will  soon  sell  your  larches ;  they  are  always  in  de- 
mand ;  they  make  good  sleepers.  You  will  not  get  a 
walking-stick  out  of  them,  a  crutch  for  your  old  age,  or 
a  rib  for  a  74.  You  must  take  them  from  a  wind-sown, 
wind-welded  and  heartened  tree.  Science  is  like  cast- 
iron  ;  soon  made,  brittle,  and  without  elasticity,  formal, 
useless  when  broken.  Art  is  like  malleable  iron  ;  tough, 
can  cut,  can  be  used  up ;  is  harder  and  has  a  spring. 
Your  well-informed,  merely  scientific,  men  are  all  alike. 
Set  one  agoing  at  any  point,  he  brings  up  as  he  revolves 
the  same  figures,  the  same  thoughts,  or  rather  ghosts  of 
thoughts,  as  any  ten  thousand  others.  Look  at  him  on 
one  side,  and,  like  a  larch,  you  see  his  whole  ;  every 
side  is  alike.  Look  at  the  poorest  hazel,  holding  itself 
by  its  grappling  talons  on  some  gray  rock,  and  you  never 
saw  one  like  it ;  you  will  never  see  one  like  it  again ;  it 
has  more  sides  than  one ;  it  has  had  a  discipline,  and 
has  a  will  of  its  own  ;  it  is  self-taught,  self-sufficient. 

Wisdom  is  the  vital  union  of  Art  and  Science ;  an 
individual  result  of  the  two :  it  is  more  excellent  than 
either;  it  is  the  body  animated  by  the  soul;  the  will, 
knowing  what  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it;  the  members 


198 


ART   AND   SCIENCE. 


capable  of  fulfilling  its  bidding ;  the  heart  nourishing 
and  warming  the  whole;  the  brain  stimulating  and 
quickening  the  entire  organism. 

SCIENCE  AND  ART,  A  CONTRASTED  PARALLEL. 

ART  SCIENCE 


Knows  little  of  its  birth. 

Knows  more  of  its  progeny. 

Invents. 

Uses  the  imperative. 

Is  founded  on  experience. 

Teaches  us  to  do. 

Is  motive  and  dynamical. 

Is  eductive  and  conductive. 

Involves  knowledge. 

Buys  it,  making  of  it  what  it 
likes,  and  needs,  and  no  more. 

Has  rules. 

Is  synthetical  more  than  analyt- 
ical. 

Is  regulative  and  administrative, 
and  shows  the  how,  cares  less 
about  the  why. 

Eats  ;  makes  muscles,  and  brains, 
and  bones,  and  teeth,  and  fin- 
gers of  it,  without  very  well 
knowing  how. 

Is  strong  in  organic  life,  and 
dwells  in  the  non-ego. 

Is  unconscious. 

Is  a  hand  that  handles  tools  ;  is 
executive. 

Does  something,  and  could  do  it 
again. 

Is  gold. 

Apprehends. 

Ts  endogenous,  and  grows  from 
within. 

Is  often  liferented  ;  dies  with  its 
possessor. 


Knows  its  birth  ;  registers  it,  and 

its  after  history. 
Has  often  no  progeny  at  all. 
Discovers. 
Uses  the  indicative. 
Is  antecedent  to  experience. 
Teaches  us  to  know. 
Is  statical  and  has  no  feet. 
Is  inductive  and  deductive. 
Evolves  it. 
Makes  it  up,  and  sells  it. 

Has  laws. 
Is  the  reverse. 

Is  legislative  and  judicial  ;  says 
what;  says  little  as  to  how,  but 
much  as  to  why. 

Makes  food,  cooks  it,  serves  it  up. 


Is  strong  in  animal  life,  and  dwells 

in  the  ego. 
Is  conscious. 
Is  a  sword,  or  a  knife,  or  a  pen, 

or,  in  a  word,  an  instrument. 
Says  something,  and  can  say  it 

again. 
Is  coin. 
Comprehends. 
Is    exogenous,   and  grows    from 

without. 
Is  transmissible. 


ART  AND  SCIENCE. 


199 


Forges  the  mind. 

Makes  knowledge  a  means. 

Is  a  master,  and  keeps  apprentices. 

Holds  by  the  will. 

Is  effect. 

Is  great  in  TO  oi-i.1 

Is  science  embodied  —  material- 
ized. 

Is  the  outflowing  of  mind  into 
nature. 

Is  man  acting  on  nature. 

Gives  form,  excellency,  and 
beauty,  to  the  rude  material  on 
•which  it  operates. 

Uses  one  eye. 


SCIENCE 

Furnishes  it. 

Makes  it  an  end. 

Is  a  teacher,  and  has  scholars. 

Holds  by  the  understanding. 

Is  cause. 

Is  great  in  TO  SIOTI. 

Is  art  spiritualized. 

Is  the  inflowing  of  nature  into 
mind. 

Is  nature  speaking  to  man. 

Gives  form,  excellency,  and 
beauty,  to  the  otherwise  unin- 
formed intelligence  in  which  it 
resides. 

Uses  the  other. 


Uses  both,  and  is  stereoscopic,  discerning  solidity  as  well  as  surface, 
and  seeing  on  both  sides  ;  its  vision  being  the  unum  quid  of  two 
images. 

My  friend,  Dr.  Adams  of  Banchory,  tells  me  that 
Bacon  somewhere  calls  Science  and  Art  a  pair  of  Cy- 
clops, and  that  Kant  calls  them  twin  Polyphemes. 

It  may  be  thought  that  I  have  shown  myself,  in  this 
parallel  and  contrast,  too  much  of  a  partisan  for  Art  as 
against  Science,  and  the  same  may  be  not  unfairly  said 
of  much  of  the  rest  of  this  volume :  it  was  in  a  measure 
on  purpose ;  the  general  tendency  being  counteractive  of 
the  purely  scientific  and  positive,  or  merely  informative 
current  of  our  day.  We  need  to  remind  ourselves  con- 
stantly, that  this  kind  of  knowledge  puffeth  up,  and  that 
it  is  something  quite  else  which  buildeth  up.2  It  has 

1  'Apx>)  yap  TO  OTI  '  KOI  ei  TOUTO  (patvoiTO  apKoimo?,  ovSev  TrpotrSeiJcrei  TOL 

S«m  —  Principium  est  enim  scire  rem  ita  esse  ;  quod  si  satis  sit  perspi 
cuum,  cur  ita  sit  non  magnopere  desiderabitur.  —  ARIST.  ETH.  A.  iv. 

2  Advancement  of  Learning,  pp.  8-11.  — Pickering's  Ed. 


200  ART   AND   SCIENCE. 

been  finely  said  that  Nature  is  the  Art  of  God,  and  w^e 
may  as  truly  say  that  all  art  —  in  the  widest  sense,  as 
practical  and  productive  —  is  his  science.  He  knows  all 
that  goes  to  the  making  of  everything,  for  He  is  him- 
self, in  the  strictest  sense,  the  only  maker.  He  knows 
what  made  Shakespeare  and  Newton,  Julius  Caesar  and 
Plato,  what  we  know  them  to  have  been,  and  they  are 
his  by  the  same  right  as  the  sea  is,  and  the  strength  of 
the  hills,  for  He  made  them  and  his  hands  formed  them, 
as  well  as  the  dry  land.  This  making  the  circle  for  ever 
meet,  this  bringing  Omega  eternally  round  to  Alpha,  is, 
I  think,  more  and  more  revealing  itself  as  a  great  cen- 
tral, personal,  regulative  truth,  and  is  being  carried 
down  more  than  ever  into  the  recesses  of  physical  re- 
search, where  Nature  is  fast  telling  her  long-kept  secrets, 
all  her  tribes  speaking  each  in  their  own  tongue  the 
wonderful  works  of  God  —  the  sea  is  saying,  It  is  not 
in  me,  —  everything  is  giving  up  any  title  to  anything 
like  substance,  beyond  being  the  result  of  the  one  Su- 
preme "Will.  The  more  chemistry,  and  electrology,  and 
life  are  searched  into  by  the  keenest  and  most  remorse- 
less experiment,  the  more  do  we  find  ourselves  admit- 
ting that  motive  power  and  force,  as  manifested  to  us, 
is  derived,  is  in  its  essence  immaterial,  is  direct  from  Him 
in  whom  we  live  and  move,  and  to  whom,  in  a  sense 
quite  peculiar,  belongeth  power. 

Gravitation,  we  all  allow,  is  not  provable  to  be  in- 
herent in  matter;  it  is  db  extra;  and  as  it  were,  the 
attraction  of  his  offspring  to  the  infinite  Parent,  their 
being  drawn  to  Him,  —  the  spirit,  the  vis  motiva,  return- 
ng  to  Him  who  gave  it. 

The  Dynamical  Theory,  as  it  is  called,  tends  this  way. 
Search  into  matter,  and  try  to  take  it  at  the  quick  ere  it 


ART  AND   SCIENCE.  201 

is  aware,  the  nearer  you  are  to  it  the  less  material  it 
seems ;  it  as  it  were  recedes  and  shrinks  —  like  moon- 
light vanishing  as  soon  as  scanned,  and  seems,  as  far  as 
we  can  yet  say,  and  as  old  Boscovich  said,  little  else 
than  a  congeries  of  forces.  Matter  under  the  lens  is 
first  seen  as  made  up  of  atoms  swimming  in  nothing; 
then  further  on,  these  atoms  become  themselves  trans- 
lucent, and,  as  if  scared,  break  up  and  disappear.  So 
that,  for  anything  we  are  getting  to  know,  this  may  be 
the  only  essence  of  matter,  that  it  is  capable  of  being 
acted  upon  so  as  to  re-act ;  and  that  here,  as  well  as  in 
all  that  is  more  usually  called  spiritual  and  dynamical, 
God  is  all  in  all,  the  beginning,  as  he  certainly  is  the 
ending ;  and  that  matter  is  what  it  is,  simply  by  his 
willing  it,  and  that  his  willing  it  to  be,  constitutes  its 
essence.1 

1  The  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  Nature,  however  difficult  of  physical 
proof  by  experiment,  —  and  we  might  a  priori  expect  it  to  be  very 
difficult,  for  in  such  a  case  we  must  go  up  against  the  stream,  instead 
of,  as  in  analytics,  going  with  it,  it  is  a  secret  of  Nature,  and  she  re- 
fuses stoutly  to  give  it  up,  you  can  readily  split  the  sunbeam  into  its 
spectrum,  its  chemical  and  electric  rays  ;  you  cannot  so  readily  gather 
them  up  into-  one,  —  but  metaphysically,  it  has  always  seemed  to  me 
more  than  probable.  If  God  is  one,  as  we  believe,  and  if  he  made  all 
worlds  out  of  nothing  by  his  word,  then  surely,  the  nearest  thing  to 
the  essence  of  all  Nature,  when  she  came  from  God,  the  materies  mate- 
rice,  must  partake  of  his  unity,  or  in  words  used  elsewhere  (Preface  to 
Dr.  Samuel  Brown's  Lectures  and  Essays),  and  somewhat  altered 
"  If  we  believe  that  matter  and  all  created  existence  is  the  immediate 
result  of  the  will  of  the  Supreme,  who  of  old  inhabited  his  own  eter 
nity  and  dwelt  alone  ;  that  he  said  '  Fiat ! '  et  Jit,  —  that  Nature  is 
for  ever  uttering  to  the  great  I  AM,  this  one  speech  —  'Tnou  ART  !' 
is  not  the  conclusion  irresistible,  that  matter  thus  willed,  resulting,  as 
it  does,  in  an  external  world,  and,  indeed,  in  all  things  visible  and  in- 
visible, must  partake  of  the  absolute  unity  of  its  Author,  and  must,  in 
any  essence  which  it  may  be  said  to  possess,  be  itself  necessarily  ONE 
being  by  the  same  infinite  Will  made  what  we  find  it  to  be,  multiform 
and  yet  one  :  — 


202  ART   AND   SCIENCE. 

The  more  the  microscope  searches  out  the  molecular 
structure  of  matter,  the  thinner  does  its  object  become, 
till  we  feel  as  if  the  veil  were  not  so  much  being  with- 
drawn, as  being  worn  away  by  the  keen  scrutiny,  or  rent 
in  twain,  until  at  last  we  come  to  the  true  Shechinah, 
and  may  discern  through  it,  if  our  shoes  are  off,  the 
words  "  I  AM,"  burning,  but  not  consumed. 

There  is  a  Science  of  Art,  and  there  is  an  Art  of  Sci- 
ence —  the  Art  of  Discovery,  as  by  a  wonderful  instinct, 
enlarging  human  knowledge.  Some  of  the  highest  ex- 
ercises of  the  human  spirit  have  been  here.  All  primary 
discoverers  are  artists  in  the  sciences  they  work  in. 
Newton's  guess  that  the  diamond  was  inflammable,  and 
many  instances  which  must  occur  to  the  reader,  are  of 
the  true  artsman  kind ;  he  did  it  by  a  sort  of  venatic 
sense  —  knowing  somewhat,  and  venturing  more  —  com- 
ing events  forecasting  their  shadows,  but  shadows  which 
the  wise  alone  can  interpret.  A  man  who  has  been  up 
all  night,  while  the  world  was  asleep,  and  has  watched 
the  day-spring,  the  light  shooting  and  circulating  in  the 
upper  heavens,  knows  that  the  sun  is  coming,  that  "  the 
bright  procession  "  is  "  on  its  way."  It  shines  afar  to 
him,  because  he  has  watched  it  from  his  Fesole,  and 
presaged  the  dawn.  The  world  in  general  has  not  been 
an  early  riser ;  it  is  more  given  to  sit  late ;  it  frequents 
the  valleys  more  than  the  mountain-tops.  Thus  it  is, 
that  many  discoveries,  which  to  us  below  seem  mysteri- 
ous, as  if  they  had  a  touch  of  witchcraft  about  them,  are 

1  One  God,  — one  law,  —  one  element.'  " 

In  reference  to  this  doctrine,  Faraday,  and  indeed  all  advanced 
chemists  and  physicists,  indicate  that  they  are,  as  children  used  to  say 
in  their  play,  "getting  warm,"  and  nearing  this  great  consummation, 
which  will  be  the  true  philosophy  of  material  science,  its  education 
from  the  multiple  and  complex,  into  the  simple  and  one-fold. 


ART   AND   SCIENCE.  203 

the  plain,  certain  discoveries  of  sagacious  reason  higher 
up.  The  scientific  prophet  has  done  all  this,  as  Ruskin 
says,  by  "  the  instinctive  grasp  which  the  healthy  imag- 
ination 1  has  of  possible  truth ; "  but  he  got  the  grasp 
and  the  instinct,  and  his  means,  from  long,  rigorous  prac- 
tice with  actual  truth. 

We  ought  to  reverence  these  men,  as  we  stand  afar 
off  on  the  plain,  and  see  them  going  up  "the  mount," 
and  drawing  nearer  into  the  darkness  where  God  dwells : 
they  will  return  with  a  message  for  us. 

This  foretelling,  or  power  of  scientific  anticipation,  is, 
as  we  have  said,  the  highest  act  of  scientific  man,  and  is 
an  inter  penetration  of  'E7ri<m//A77  and  TC'^VT;. 

Such  a  view  as  I  have  given  is  in  harmony  with  rev- 
elation, and  unites  with  it  in  proclaiming  the  moral 
personality,  not  less  than  the  omnipotence,  of  God,  who 

1  The  part  which  imagination  plays  in  all  primary  discoveries 
might  be  here  enlarged  on,  were  there  room.  Here,  as  everywhere 
else,  the  difficulty  is  to  keep  the  mean,  and  avoid  too  much  wing,  or 
too  little.  A  geologist  or  chemist  without  imagination  is  a  bird  with- 
out wings  ;  if  he  wants  the  body  of  common  sense,  and  the  brain  of 
reason,  he  is  like  a  butterfly  ;  he  may  be  a  "child  of  the  sun,"  and 
his  emblazoned  wings  be  "rich  as  an  evening  sky,"  but  he  is  the  sport 
of  every  wind  of  doctrine,  he  flutters  to  and  fro  purposeless,  is  brilliant 
and  evanescent  as  the  flowers  he  lives  on.  Kather  should  he  be  like 
the  seraphim,  "who  had  six  wings;  with  twain  he  covered  his  feet, 
with  twain  he  covered  his  face,  and  with  twain  he  did  fly  ;  "  rever- 
ence, modesty,  and  caution  —  a  habit  of  walking  humbly  —  are  as 
much  part  of  a  great  philosopher  as  insight  and  daring.  But  I  believe 
there  has  been  no  true  discoverer,  from  Galileo  and  Kepler,  to  Davy, 
Owen,  and  our  own  Goodsir — the  Nimrods  of  "possible  truth"  — 
without  wings  ;  they  have  ever  had  as  their  stoutest,  stanchest  hound, 
a  powerful  and  healthy  imagination  to  find  and  "point"  the  game. 
None  of  these  men  remained  within  the  positive  known :  they  must 
hypothesize,  as  Warburton  calls  it ;  they  must,  by  a  necessity  of  their 
nature,  reach  from  the  known  out  into  the  unknown.  The  great  thing 
is  to  start  from  a  truth  ;  to  have  a  punctum  stuns  from  which  to  move 


204  ART   AND    SCIENCE. 

thus,  in  a  sense  quite  literal,  "  guides  all  the  creatures 
with  his  eye,  and  refreshes  them  with  his  influence,  mak- 
ing them  feel  the  force  of  his  Almightiness."  —  (Jeremy 
Taylor.) 1  Every  one  must  remember  the  sublimely 
simple  shutting  up  of  the  Principia,  as  by  "  a  sevenfold 
chorus  of  hallelujahs  and  harping  symphonies."  The 
humility  of  its  author  has  a  grandeur  in  it  greater  than 
any  pride ;  it  is  as  if  that  lonely,  intrepid  thinker,  who 
had  climbed  the  heavens  by  that  ladder  he  speaks  of  in 
such  modest  and  homely  phrase  (patient  observation,  in 
which,  if  in  anything,  he  thought  he  excelled  other  men, 
—  the  never  missing  a  step),  after  soaring  "above  the 
wheeling  poles,"  had  come  suddenly  to  "  heaven's  door," 
and  at  it  looked  in,  and  had  prostrated  himself  before 
"  the  thunderous  throne."  2 

There  is  here  the  same  strength,  simplicity,  and  stern 
beauty  and  surprise,  as  of  lightning  and  thunder,  the 
same  peremptory  assertion  and  reiteration  of  the  subject, 
like  "  harpers  harping  upon  their  harps,"  and  the  same 
main  burden  and  refrain,  as  in  the  amazing  chorus  which 
closes  Handel's  "  Messiah."  We  give  it  for  its  own 
grandeur,  and  for  its  inculcation  of  the  personality  of 
God,  so  much  needed  now,  and  without  which  human 
responsibility,  and  moral  obligation,  and  all  we  call  duty, 
must  be  little  else  than  a  dream. 

"  Hie  omnia  regit  non  ut  anima  mundi,  sed  ut  univer- 
Borum  dominus.  Et  propter  dominium  suuin,  domiaus 
deus  TlavroKpuLTtap  dici  solet.  Nam  deus  est  vox  relativa 
st  ad  servos  refertur :  et  deitas  est  dominatio  dei,  non 

1  ©ebs  irepie'xei  rfi  BouAijtrei  TO  TTOLV,  jxei^cov  ToG  TTOLVTOS  wGirep  rrj   oucri'a 
OVTWS  «al  afiq.  —  EESP.   AD   ORTHOD. 

2  Milton,  Vacation  Exercise,  anno  cetalis  19. 


ART   AND   SCIENCE.  205 

in  corpus  proprium,  uti  sentiunt  quibus  dens  est  anima 
mnndi,  sed  in  servos.  Deus  summus  est  ens  aeternum, 
infinitum,  absolute  perfectum :  sed  ens  utcunque  perfec- 
tum  sine  domiuio  non  est  dominus  deus.  Dicimus  enim 
deus  meus,  deus  vester,  deus  Israelis,  deus  deorum,  et 
dominus  dominorum :  sed  non  dicimus  seternus  meus, 
asternus  vester,  seternus  Israelis,  aeternus  deorum ;  non 
dicimus  infinitus  meus,  vel  perfectus  meus.  Has  appel- 
lationes  relationem  non  habent  ad  servos.  Vox  deus 
passim  significat  dominum :  sed  omnis  dominus  non  est 
deus.  Dominatio  entis  spiritualis  deum  constituit,  vera 
verum,  summa  summum,  ficta  fictum.  Et  ex  domina- 
tione  vera  sequitur  deum  verum  esse  vivum,  intelligen- 
tem  et  potentem ;  ex  reliquis  perfectionibus  summum 
esse,  vel  summe  perfectum.  JEternus  est  et  infinitus, 
omnipotens  et  omnisciens,  id  est,  durat  ab  seterno  in 
aeternum,  et  adest  ab  infinito  in  infinitum  :  omnia  regit ; 
et  omnia  cognoscit  quaa  fiunt  aut  fieri  possunt.  Non  est 
eeternitas  et  infinitas,  sed  cetemus  et  infinitus  ;  non  est 
duratio  et  spatium,  sed  durat  et  adest.  Durat  semper,  et 
adest  ubique,  et  existendo  semper  et  ubique,  durationem 
et  spatium  constituit.  .  . . 

"  Hunc  (Deum)  cognoscimus  solummodo  per  proprie- 
tates  ejus  et  attributa,  et  per  sapientissimas  et  optirnas 
rerum  structuras  et  causas  finales,  et  admiramur  ob  per- 
fectiones ;  veneramur  autem  et  colimus  ob  dominium. 
Colimus  enim  ut  servi,  et  deus  sine  domiuio,  providen- 
tia,  et  causis  finalibus  nihil  aliud  est  quam  fatum  et 
natura.  A  caeca  necessitate  metaphjsica,  quae  utique 
eadem  est  semper  et  ubique,  nulla  oritur  rerum  variatio. 
Tota  rerum  conditarum  pro  locis  ac  temporibus  diver- 
litas,  ab  ideis  et  voluntate  entis  necessario  existentis 
solummodo  oriri  potuit."  —  Principia,  Ed.  3tia>  pp.  528, 
529 :  London,  1726. 


206  ART   AND   SCIENCE. 

"Nous  accordons  a  la  raison  le  pouvoir  de  nous  de- 
montrer  1'existence  du  Createur,  de  nous  instruire  de  ses 
attrihuts  infinis  et  de  ses  rapports  avec  1'ensemble  dea 
etres ;  mais  par  le  sentiment  nous  entrons  en  quelquo 
sorte  en  commerce  plus  intime  avec  lui,  et  son  action 
sur  nous  est  plus  immediate  et  plus  presente.  Nous 
professons  un  egal  eloignement  et  pour  le  mysticisme  — 
qui,  sacrifiant  la  raison  au  sentiment  et  l'homme  a  Dieu, 
se  perd  dans  les  splendeurs  de  1'infini  —  et  pour  le  pan- 
theisme,  qui  refuse  a  Dieu  les  perfections  memes  de 
l'homme,  en  admettant  sous  ce  nom  on  ne  sait  quel  etre 
abstrait,  prive  de  conscience  et  de  liberte.  Grace  a  cette 
conscience  de  nous-memes  et  de  notre  libre  arbitre,  sur 
laquelle  se  fondent  a  la  fois  et  notre  methode  et  notre 
philosophic  tout  entiere,  ce  dieu  abstrait  et  vague  dont 
nous  venons  de  parler,  le  dieu  du  pantheisme  devient  a 
jamais  impossible,  et  nous  voyons  a  sa  place  la  Provi- 
dence, le  Dieu  libre  et  saint  que  le  genre  humain  adore, 
le  legislateur  du  monde  moral,  la  source  en  meme  temps 
que  1'objet  de  cet  amour  insatiable  du  beau  et  du  bien 
qui  se  mele  au  fond  de  nos  ames  a  des  passions  d'un 
autre  ordre." —  Dictionnaire  des  Sciences  Philosophiques, 
par  une  Societ4  des  Professeurs  et  Savans.  Preface, 
pp.  viii.  ix. 


OUR   GIDEON  GRAYS. 


"Agricolam  laudat 
Sub  gatti  cantum  consultor  ubi  ostia  pulsat." 

"/  would  rather  go  back  to  Africa,  than  practise  again  at  Pee* 
Ues."  —  MUNGO  PARK. 


OUR   GIDEON   GRAYS.1 

T  might  perhaps  have  been  better,  if  our  hard 
headed,  hard-hitting,  clever,  and  not  over-man- 
suete  friend  "  Fuge  Medicos "  had  never  al- 
lowed those  "  wild  and  stormy  writings  "  of  his  to  come 
into  print,  and  it  might  perhaps  also  have  been  as  well, 
had  we  told  him  so  at  once ;  but  as  we  are  inclined  to 
be  optimists  when  a  thing  is  past,  we  think  more  good 
than  evil  has  come  out  of  his  assault  and  its  repulse. 
"  F.  M."  (we  cannot  be  always  giving  at  full  length  his 
uncouth  Hoffmannism)  has,  in  fact,  in  his  second  letter, 
which  is  much  the  better,  answered  his  first,  and  turned 
his  back  considerably  upon  himself,  by  abating  some  of 
his  most  offensive  charges ;  and  our  country  doctors  in 
their  replies  have  shown  that  they  have  sense  as  well  as 
spirit,  and  can  write  like  gentlemen,  while  they  of  the 
town  have  cordially  and  to  good  purpose  spoken  up  for 
their  hard-working  country  brethren. 

We  are  not  now  going  to  adjudicate  upon  the  strictly 
professional  points  raised  by  "  F.  M. : "  whether,  for 
instance,  bleeding  is  ever  anything  but  mischievous ; 

1  The  following  short  paper  from  the  Scotsman  was  occasioned  by  a 
correspondence  in  that  newspaper,  in  which  doctors  in  general,  and 
country  doctors  in  particular,  were  attacked  and  defended.  It  is  re- 
printed here  as  a  record  of  the  amazing  facts  brought  out  by  Dr.  Ali- 
son's Association.  In  the  attack  by  "  Fuge  Medicos,"  consisting  of 
two  long  letters,  there  was  much  ability  with  not  much  fairness,  and 
act  a  little  misapplied  energy  of  language,  and  sharpness  of  invective. 
14 


210  OUR  GIDEON  GRAYS. 

whether  the  constitution,  or  type  of  disease,  changes  or 
not ;  whether  Dr.  Samuel  Dickson  of  "  the  Fallacies " 
is  an  impudent  quack  or  the  Newton  of  medicine ; 
whether  Dr.  Wilkinson  is  an  amiable  and  bewildered 
Swedenborgian,  with  much  imagination,  little  logic,  and 
less  knowledge,  and  a  wonderful  power  of  beautiful 
writing,  or  the  herald  of  a  new  gospel  of  health.  We 
may  have  our  own  opinions  on  these  subjects,  but  their 
discussion  lies  out  of  our  beat ;  they  are  strictly  profes- 
sional in  their  essence,  and  ought  to  remain  so  in  their 
treatment.  We  are  by  no  means  inclined  to  deny  that 
there  are  ignorant  and  dangerous  practitioners  in  the 
country,  as  well  as  in  the  city.  What  we  have  to  say 
against  "  F.  M."  and  in  favor  of  the  class  he  has  attacked 
is,  that  no  man  should  bring  such  charges  against  any 
large  body  of  men,  without  offering  such  an  amount  and 
kind  of  proof  of  their  truth,  as,  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say,  it  is  impossible  for  any  mere  amateur  to  produce, 
even  though  that  amateur  were  as  full  of  will  and  en- 
ergy as  "  F.  M. ; "  and  unless  he  can  do  so,  he  stands 
convicted  of  something  very  like  what  he  himself  calls 
"  reckless,  maleficent  stupidity."  It  is  true,  "  F.  M." 
speaks  of  "  ignorant  country  doctors ;  "  but  his  general 
charges  against  the  profession  have  little  meaning,  and 
his  Latin  motto  still  less,  if  ignorance  be  not  predicated 
of  country  doctors  in  general.  One,  or  even  half  a  dozen 
worthless,  mischievous  country  doctors,  is  too  small  an 
induction  of  particulars  to  warrant  "  F.  M."  in  inferring 
the  same  qualities  of  some  500  or  more  unknown  men. 
But  we  are  not  content  with  proving  the  negative :  we 
speak  not  without  long,  intimate,  and  extensive  knowl- 
edge of  the  men  who  have  the  charge  of  the  lives  of  our 
country  population,  when  we  assert,  that  not  only  are 


OUR   GIDEON   GRAYS.  211 

they  as  a  class  fully  equal  to  other  rural  professional 
men  in  intelligence,  humanity,  and  skill,  and  in  all  that 
constitutes  what  we  call  worth,  but  that,  take  them  all 
in  all,  they  are  the  best  educated,  the  most  useful,  the 
most  enlightened,  as  they  certainly  are  the  worst  paid 
and  hardest-worked,  country  doctors  in  Christendom. 
Gideon  Gray,  in  Scott's  story  of  the  "  Surgeon's  Daugh- 
ter," is  a  faithful  type  of  this  sturdy,  warm-hearted,  use- 
ful class  of  men,  "  under  whose  rough  coat  and  blunt 
exterior,"  as  he  truly  says,  "  you  find  professional  skill 
and  enthusiasm,  intelligence,  humanity,  courage,  and 
science." 

Moreover,  they  have  many  primary  mental  qualities 
in  which  their  more  favored  brethren  of  the  city  are  nec- 
essarily behind  them  —  self-reliance,  presence  of  mind, 
simplicity  and  readiness  of  resource,  and  a  certain 
homely  sagacity.  These  virtues  of  the  mind  are,  from 
the  nature  of  things,  more  likely  to  be  fully  brought  out, 
where  a  man  must  be  self-contained  and  everything  to 
himself ;  he  cannot  be  calling  in  another  to  consult  with 
him  in  every  anxious  case,  or  indulge  himself  in  the 
luxury  of  that  safety  which  has  waggishly  been  ex- 
pounded as  attaching  more  to  the  multitude  of  counsel- 
lors than  to  the  subject  of  their  counsel.  Were  this  a 
fitting  place,  we  could  relate  many  instances  of  this  sa- 
gacity, decision,  and  tact,  as  shown  by  men  never  known 
beyond  their  own  countryside,  which,  if  displayed  in 
more  public  life,  would  have  made  their  possessors  take 
their  place  among  our  public  great  men. 

Such  men  as  old  Reid  of  Peebles,  Meldrum  of  Kin- 
cardine, Darling  of  Dunse,  Johnston  of  Stirling,  Clark- 
son  (the  original  of  Gideon  Gray)  and  Anderson  of 
Selkirk,  Robert  Stevenson  of  Gilmerton,  Kirk  wood  of 


212  OUR   GIDEON   GRAYS. 

Auchterarder,  and  many  as  good  —  these  were  not  likely 
to  be  the  representatives  of  a  class  who  are  guilty  of 
"  assaults  upon  life,"  "  who  are  let  loose  upon  some  un- 
happy rural  district,  to  send  vigorous  men  and  women 
to  their  graves,"  who  "  in  youth  have  been  reckless  and 
cruel,  given  to  hanging  sparrows  and  cats,  and  fit  for 
no  humane  profession,"  etc.,  etc.  Now,  is  there  either 
good  sense,  good  feeling,  or  good  breeding,  in  using  these 
unmeasured  terms  against  an  entire  class  of  men  ?  As- 
suming—  as  from  the  subtlety  and  hairsplitting  charac- 
ter of  his  arguments,  and  the  sharpness  and  safety  of  his 
epithets,  we  are  entitled  to  do  —  that  "  F.  M. "  belongs 
to  another  of  the  learned  professions,  we  ask,  "  What 
would  he  say  if  a  "  Fuge  Juridicos "  were  to  rise  up 
who  considered  that  the  true  reading  in  Scripture  should 
be,  "  The  devil  was  a  lawyer  from  the  beginning,"  as- 
serting that  all  country  lawyers  in  Scotland  were  curses 
to  the  community,  that  it  would  be  well  if  the  Lord  Ad- 
vocate "  would  try  half  a  dozen  every  year  "  for  devour- 
ing widows'  houses,  and  other  local  villanies  ;  and,  more- 
over, what  would  he  think  of  the  brains  and  the  modesty 
of  an  M.  D.  making  an  assault  upon  the  legal  profession 
on  purely  professional  questions,  and  settling,  ab  extra, 
and  off-hand  and  for  ever,  matters  which  the  wisest 
heads  ab  infra  have  left  still  in  doubt  ?  The  cases  are 
strictly  parallel ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  worst  signs  of  our 
times,  this  public  intermeddling  of  everybody,  from  the 
Times  down  to  "  F.  M."  with  every  science,  profession, 
and  trade.  Sydney  Smith  might  now  say  of  the  public, 
what  he  said  of  the  Master  of  Trinity,  "  Science  is  his 
forte,  omniscience  is  his  foible"  Every  profession,  and 
every  man  in  it,  knows  something  more  and  better  than 
any  non-professional  man  can,  and  it  is  the  part  of  a 


OUR   GIDEON   GRAYS.  213 

wise  man  to  stick  to  his  trade.  He  is  more  likely  to  ex- 
cel in  it,  and  to  honor  and  wonder  at  the  skill  of  others. 
For  it  is  a  beautiful  law  of  our  nature  that  we  must 
wonder  at  everything  which  we  see  well  done,  and  yet 
do  not  know  how  it  is  done,  or  at  any  rate  know  we 
could  not  do  it.  Look  at  any  art,  at  boot-closing,  at  a 
saddler  at  his  work,  at  basket-making,  at  our  women 
with  their  nimble  and  exact  fingers  —  somebody  is  con- 
stantly doing  something  which  everybody  cannot  do,  and 
therefore  everybody  admires.  We  are  afraid  "  F.  M." 
does  not  know  many  things  he  could  not  do. 

We  repeat  that  our  Gideon  Grays  are,  as  a  class, 
worthy  and  intelligent,  skilful  and  safe,  doing  much 
more  good  than  evil.1  They  deserve  well  of,  and  live  in 
the  hearts  of,  the  people,  and  work  day  and  night  for 
less  than  anybody  but  themselves  and  their  wives  are 
likely  ever  to  know,  for  they  are  most  of  them  unknown 
to  the  Income-tax  collectors.  They  are  like  the  rest  of 
us,  we  hope,  soberer,  better  read,  more  enlightened,  than 
they  were  fifty  years  ago ;  they  study  and  trust  Nature 
more,  and  conquer  her  by  submission  ;  they  bleed  and 
blister  less,  and  are  more  up  to  the  doctrine  that  preven- 
tion is  the  best  of  all  cures.  They  have  participated 
in  the  general  acknowledgment  among  the  community, 
thanks  to  the  two  Combes  and  others,  and  to  the  spirit 
of  the  age,  of  those  divine  laws  of  Health  which  He 
who  made  us  implanted  in  us,  and  the  study  and  obedi- 
ence of  which  is  a  fulfilling  of  His  word.  We  can  only 
hope  that  our  clever  and  pancratic  friend,  "  F.  M.,"  if 
on  his  autumn  holidays  in  Teviotdale  or  Lochaber  he 
has  his  shoulder  or  his  lower  jaw  dislocated,  or  has  a  fit 
of  colic  or  a  hernia,  or  any  of  those  ills  which  even  his 
i  Note,  p.  218. 


214  OUR  GIDEON   GRAYS. 

robust  self  is  heir  to,  may  have  sense  left  him  to  send 
for  Gideon  Gray,  and  to  trust  him,  and,  making  a  slight 
alteration  on  his  Hoffmannism,  may  be  led  to  cry  lustily 
out,  in  worse  Latin  and  with  better  sense  —  "Fuge  pro 
Medico  "  —  Run  for  the  Doctor ! 

As  already  said,  all  of  us  who  have  been  much  in  the 
country  know  the  hard  life  of  its  doctors  —  how  much 
they  do,  and  for  how  little  they  do  it ;  but  we  dare  say 
our  readers  are  not  prepared  for  the  following  account 
of  their  unremunerated  labor  among  paupers  :  — 

In  1846,  a  voluntary  association  of  medical  men  was 
formed  in  Edinburgh,  with  the  public-hearted  Dr.  Alison 
as  chairman.  Its  object  was  to  express  their  sympathy 
with  their  brethren  in  the  remote  country  districts  of 
Scotland,  in  regard  to  their  unremunerated  attendance 
on  paupers,  and  to  collect  accurate  information  on  this 
subject.  The  results  of  their  benevolent  exertions  may 
be  found  in  the  Appendix  to  the  First  Report  of  the 
Board  of  Supervision.  It  is  probably  very  little  known 
beyond  those  officially  concerned  ;  we  therefore  give 
some  of  its  astounding  and  lamentable  revelations.  The 
queries  referred  to  the  state  and  claims  of  the  medical 
practitioners  in  the  rural  districts  of  Scotland,  in  relation 
to  their  attendance  upon  the  permanent  or  occasional  pa- 
rochial poor.  Out  of  325  returns,  94  had  received  some 
remuneration  for  attendance  and  outlay.  In  one  of 
these  instances,  the  remuneration  consisted  of  three  shil- 
lings for  twelve  years'  attendance  on  seventy  constant, 
and  thirteen  occasional  paupers  ;  a  fine  question  in  dec- 
imals—  what  would  each  visit  come  to?  But  worse 
remains.  One  man  attended  400  paupers  for  eight  years, 
and  never  received  one  farthing  for  his  skill,  his  time, 
or  his  drugs.  Another  has  the  same  story  to  tell  of 


OUR  GIDEON  GRAYS.  215 

850,  some  of  them  thirty  miles  off ;  he  moderately  cal- 
culates his  direct  loss,  from  these  calls  on  his  time  and 
his  purse,  at  £70  a  year.  Out  of  253  who  report,  208 
state  that,  besides  attending  for  nothing,  they  had  to 
give  on  occasions  food,  wine,  and  clothes,  and  had  to 
pay  tolls,  etc.  136  of  the  returns  contain  a  more  or  less 
definite  estimate,  in  money  value,  of  their  unrequited 
labors  ;  the  sum-total  given  in  by  them  amounts  to  thirty- 
four  thousand  four  hundred  and  fifty-seven  pounds  in  ten 
years!  being  at  the  rale  of  £238  for  each!  They  seem 
to  have  calculated  the  amount  of  medical  attendance, 
outlay,  and  drugs,  for  each  pauper  annually,  at  the  very 
moderate  average  of  four  shillings. 

Is  there  any  other  country  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
where  such  a  state  of  matters  can  be  found  ?  Such  ac- 
tive charity,  such  an  amount  of  public  good,  is  not  likely 
to  have  been  achieved  by  men  whose  lives  were  little 
else  than  the  development  of  a  juvenile  mania  for  hang- 
ing sparrows  and  cats.  We  believe  we  are  below  the 
mark  when  we  say,  that  over  head,  the  country  doctors 
of  Scotland  do  one  third  of  their  work  for  nothing,  and 
this  in  cases  where  the  receiver  of  their  attendance 
would  scorn  to  leave  his  shoes  or  his  church  seats  un- 
paid. 

We  are  glad  to  see  that  "  F.  M."  reads  Sir  William 
Hamilton.  We  doubt  not  he  does  more  than  read  him, 
and  we  trust  that  he  will  imitate  him  in  some  things 

O 

besides  his  energy,  his  learning,  and  his  hardihood  of 
thought.  As  to  his  and  other  wise  men's  pleasantries 
about  doctors  and  their  drugs,  we  all  know  what  they 
mean,  and  what  they  are  worth ;  they  are  the  bitter- 
sweet joking  human  nature  must  have  at  those  with 
whom  it  has  close  dealings  —  its  priests,  its  lawyers,  its 


216  OUR   GIDEON   GRAYS. 

doctors,  its  wives  and  husbands ;  the  very  existence  of 
such  expressions  proves  the  opposite ;  it  is  one  of  the 
luxuries  of  disrespect.  But  in  "  F.  M.'s  "  hands  these 
ancient  and  harmless  jokes  are  used  as  deadly  solemni- 
ties upon  which  arguments  are  founded. 

To  part  pleasantly  with  him,  nevertheless,  we  give 
him  three  good  old  jokes  :  —  The  Visigoths  abandoned 
an  unsuccessful  surgeon  to  the  family  of  his  deceased 
patient,  ltut  quod  de  eo  facere  voluerint,  habeant  potesta- 
tem."  Montaigne,  who  is  great  upon  doctors,  used  to 
beseech  his  friends,  that  if  he  felt  ill  they  would  let  him 
get  a  little  stronger  before  sending  for  the  doctor !  Louis 
the  Fourteenth,  who,  of  course,  was  a  slave  to  his  physi- 
cians, asked  his  friend  Moliere  what  he  did  with  his 
doctor.  "  Oh,  Sire,"  said  he,  "  when  I  am  ill  I  send  for 
him.  He  comes,  we  have  a  chat,  and  enjoy  ourselves. 
He  prescribes.  I  don't  take  it  —  and  I  am  cured !  " 

We  end  with  four  quotations,  which  our  strong-headed 
friend  "  F.  M.,"  we  are  sure,  will  cordially  relish :  — 

"In  Juvene  Theologo  conscientise  detrimentum, 
III  Juvene  Legista  bursse  decrementum, 
In  Juvene  Medico  caenieterii  iucretnentum." 

"To  imagine  Nature  incapable  to  cure  diseases,  is 
blasphemy ;  because  that  would  be  imputing  imperfec- 
tion to  the  Deity,  who  has  made  a  great  provision  for 
the  preservation  of  animal  life."  —  SYDENHAM. 

"  When  I  consider  the  degree  of  patience  and  atten- 
tion that  is  required  to  follow  Nature  in  her  slow  man- 
ner of  proceeding,  I  am  no  longer  surprised  that  men  of 
lively  parts  should  be  always  repeating,  '  Contraria  ad~ 
hibenda.'  But  Hippocrates  says  :  — '  Contraria  pau- 
latim  adhibere  oporlet,  et  interquiescere.  Periculosius 
censeo  incidere  in  medicum,  qui  nesciat  quiescere,  quam 


OUR   GIDEON   GRAYS.  217 

qui  nesciat  contraries  adhibere,  nam  qui  nescit  quiescere, 
nescit  occasiones  contraria  adhibendi ;  quare  nescit  con- 
traria  adhibere,  Qui  nescit  contraria  adhibere,  tamen, 
si  prudens  est,  scit  quiescere,  atque  si  prodesse  non  potest, 
tamen  non  obest.  Prcestantissimus  vero  est  medicus  eru- 
ditus  pariter  ac  prudens,  qui  novit  festinare  lente  ;  pro 
ipsius  morbi  urgentia,  auxiliis  instare,  atque  in  occasions 
uti  maxime  opportunis,  alioque  quiescere.'  "  —  GRANT  ON 
FEVERS,  page  311. 

"  Philosophi  qui  vitae  rationem  doceant,  vitiis  eripiant 
—  aerumnas,  metus,  angustias,  anxietates,  tristitias  irnpo- 
tentias  expugnant  trauquillitati,  liilaritati  aura/a/ceta  vin- 
dicent." —  STAHL. 

I  dou't  know  who  "  Quis  "  was,  but  the  Hudibrastics 
are  vigorous :  — 

THE   COUNTRY   SURGEON". 

Luckless  is  he,  whom  hard  fates  urge  on 

To  practise  as  a  country  surgeon  — 

To  ride  regardless  of  all  weather, 

Through  frost  and  snow,  and  hail  together  — 

To  smile  and  how  when  sick  and  tired, 

Consider'd  as  a  servant  hired. 

At  every  quarter  of  the  compass, 

A  surly  patient  makes  a  rumpus, 

Because  he  is  not  seen  the  first 

(For  each  man  thinks  his  case  the  worst). 

And  oft  at  two  points  diametric 

Called  to  a  business  obstetric. 

There  lies  a  man  with  broken  limb, 

A  lady  here  with  nervous  whim, 

"Who,  at  the  acme  of  her  fever, 

Calls  him  a  savage  if  he  leave  her. 

For  days  and  nights  in  some  lone  cottage 

Condemned  to  live  on  crusts  and  pottage, 

To  kick  his  heels  and  spin  his  brains, 

Waiting,  forsooth,  for  labor's  pains ; 

And  that  job  over,  happy  he, 


218  OUR   GIDEON  GRAYS. 

If  he  squeeze  out  a  guinea  fee. 

Now  comes  the  night,  with  toil  opprest, 

He  seeks  his  bed  in  hope  of  rest ; 

Vain  hope,  his  slumbers  are  no  more, 

Loud  sounds  the  knocker  at  the  door, 

A  farmer's  wife  at  ten  miles'  distance, 

Shouting,  calls  out  for  his  assistance; 

Fretting  and  fuming  in  the  dark, 

He  in  the  tinder  strikes  a  spark, 

And,  as  he  yawning  heaves  his  breeches, 

Envies  his  neighbor  blest  with  riches. — 

Quis,  Edin.  Ann.  Register,  1817. 


NOTE.  — P.  213. 

I  HAVE  to  thank  his  son,  Dr.  Henry  Anderson,  who  now  reigns  in 
his  stead,  for  the  following  notes  of  an  ordinary  day's  work  of  his 
father,  whose  sister  was  Mungo  Park's  wife.  Selkirk  is  the  "Middle- 
mas  "  of  Sir  Walter. 

"Dr.  Anderson  practised  in  Selkirk  for  forty-five  years,  and  never 
refused  to  go  to  any  case,  however  poor,  or  however  deep  in  his  debt, 
and  however  far  off.  One  wife  in  Selkirk  said  to  her  neighbors,  as  he 
passed  up  the  street,  "There  goes  my  honest  doctor,  that  brought  a' 
my  ten  bairns  into  the  world,  and  ne'er  got  a  rap  for  ane  o'  them." 

"His  methodical  habits,  and  perfect  arrangement  of  his  time,  ena- 
bled him  to  overtake  his  very  wide  practice,  and  to  forget  no  one.  He 
rose  generally  at  six  every  morning,  often  sooner,  and  saw  his  severe 
cases  in  the  town  early,  thus  enabling  him  to  start  for  his  long  jour- 
neys ;  and  he  generally  took  a  stage  to  breakfast  of  fifteen  or  twenty 
miles. 

"  One  morning  he  left  home  at  six  o'clock,  and  after  being  three 
miles  up  the  Yarrow,  met  a  poor  barefoot  woman,  who  had  walked 
from  St.  Mary's  Loch  to  have  two  teeth  extracted.  Out  of  .  his 
pocket  with  his  "key"  (she,  of  course,  shouting  "Murder!  murder! 
mercy!  ")  ;  down  sat  the  good  woman;  the  teeth  were  out  at  once, 
and  the  doctor  rode  on  his  journey,  to  breakfast  at  Eldinhope,  fourteen 
miles  up,  calling  on  all  his  patients  in  Yarrow  as  he  rode  along.  After 
breakfast,  by  Dryhope,  and  along  St.  Mary's  Loch,  to  the  famed  Tib- 
by's,  whose  son  was  badly,  up  to  the  head  of  the  Loch  of  the  Lows, 
and  over  the  high  hills  into  Ettrick,  and  riding  up  the  Tima  to  Dal 


OUR   GIDEON  GRAYS.  219 

gliesh,  and  back  down  the  Ettrick,  landed  at  "  Gideon's  o'  the  Singlie  " 
to  dinner  ;  and  just  when  making  a  tumbler  of  toddy,  a  boy  was 
brought  into  the  kitchen,  with  a  finger  torn  oft  in  a  threshing-mill. 
The  doctor  left  after  another  tumbler,  and  still  making  calls  about  Et- 
trickbridge,  etc.,  reached  home  about  eight,  after  riding  fifty  miles; 
not  to  rest,  however,  for  various  messages  await  his  return ;  all  are 
visited,  get  medicines  from  him,  for  there  were  no  laboratories  in  his 
days,  then  home  to  prepare  all  the  various  prescriptions  for  those  he 
had  seen  during  the  long  day.  He  had  just  finished  this  when  off  he 
was  called  to  a  midwifery  case,  far  up  Ale  Water. 

"  To  show  how  pointed  to  time  he  was,  one  day  he  had  to  go  to 
Buccleugh,  eighteen  miles  up  the  Ettrick,  and  haviug  to  ride  down  the 
moors  by  Ashkirk,  and  then  to  go  on  to  St.  Boswell's  to  see  old  Rae- 
burn,  he  wished  a  change  of  horse  at  Riddell — fixed  one  o'clock,  and 
one  of  his  sons  met  him  at  a  point  of  the  road  at  the  very  hour,  though 
he  had  ridden  forty  miles  through  hills  hardly  passable. 

"I  have  seen  him  return  from  the  head  of  Yarrow  half  frozen,  and 
not  an  hour  in  bed  till  he  had  to  rise  and  ride  back  the  same  road,  and 
all  without  a  murmur. 

"It  was  all  on  horseback  in  his  day,  as  there  was  only  one  gig  in 
the  county  ;  and  his  district  extended  west  up  the  valleys  of  Ettrick 
and  Yarrow  about  twenty  miles  ;  south  in  Ale  Water  seven  to  ten 
miles  ;  the  same  distance  east ;  and  north  about  fourteen  miles  by 
Tweedside,  and  banks  of  the  Gala  and  Caddon.  His  early  rising  ena- 
bled him  also  to  get  through  his  other  work,  for  he  made  up  all  his 
books  at  that  time,  had  accounts  ready,  wrote  all  his  business  letters, 
of  which  he  had  not  a  few. 

"  In  coming  home  late  in  the  night  from  his  long  journeys,  he  often 
slept  on  horseback  for  miles  together.  In  fine,  he  was  the  hardest- 
worked  man  in  the  shire  ;  always  cheerful,  and  always  ready  to  join, 
in  any'cheerfu!  and  harmless  amusement,  as  well  as  every  good  work; 
but  he  killed  himself  by  it,  bringing  on  premature  decay." 

He  was  many  years  Provost  of  the  Burgh,  took  his  full  share  of 
.Business,  was  the  personal  adviser  of  his  patients,  and  had  more  cura- 
torships  than  any  one  else  in  the  county.  What  a  pattern  of  active 
beneficence,  bringing  up  three  sons  to  his  profession,  giving  his  family 
a  first-rate  education,  and  never  getting  anything  for  the  half  of  his 
eveiyday's  work !  We  can  fancy  we  see  the  handsome,  swarthy,  ruddy 
old  man  coining  jogging  (his  normal  pace)  on  his  well-known  mare 
down  the  Yarrow  by  Black  Andro  (a  wooded  hill),  and  past  Foulshiels 
(Mungo  Park's  birthplace),  after  being  all  night  up  the  glen  with  some 
''crying  wife,"  and  the  cottagers  at  (Jlower-ower-'im  blessing  him  as 


220  -OUR   GIDEON  GRAYS. 

he  passed  sound  asleep,  or  possibly  wakening  him  out  of  his  dreams,  to 
come  up  and  "lance"  the  bairn's  eye-tooth. 

Think  of  a  man  like  this  —  a  valuable,  an  invaluable  public  servant, 
the  king  of  health  in  his  own  region  —  having  to  start  iu  a  winter's 
night  "on-ding  o'  snaw"  for  the  head  of  Ettrick,  to  preside  over  a 
primiparous  herd's  wife,  at  the  back  of  Boodsbeck,  who  was  as  normal 
and  independent  as  her  cows,  or  her  husband's  two  score  of  cheviots  ; 
to  have  to  put  his  faithful  and  well-bred  mare  (for  he  knew  the  value 
of  blood)  into  the  byre,  the  door  of  which  was  secured  by  an  old  har- 
row, or  possibly  in  the  course  of  the  obstetric  transaction  by  a  snow- 
drift ;  to  have  to  sit  idle  amid  the  discomforts  of  a  shepherd's  hut  for 
hours,  no  books,  except  perhaps  a  ten-year-old  Belfast  Almanac  or 
the  Fourfold  State  (an  admirable  book),  or  a  volume  of  ballads,  all  of 
which  he  knew  by  heart,  —  when  all  that  was  needed  was,  "  Mrs.  Jaup," 
or  indeed  any  neighbor  wife,  or  her  mother.  True,  our  doctor  made 
the  best  of  it,  heard  all  the  clavers  of  the  country,  took  an  interest  in 
all  their  interests,  and  was  as  much  at  home  by  the  side  of  the  ingle, 
with  its  bit  of  "licht"  or  cannel  coal,  as  he  would  be  next  day  at 
Bowhill  with  the  Duchess.  But  what  a  waste  of  time,  of  health!  what 
a  waste  of  an  admirable  man  !  and,  then,  with  impatient  young  men, 
what  an  inlet  to  mischievous  interference,  to  fatal  curtailing  of  attend 
ance  1 


DR.  ANDREW  BROWN  AND  SYDENHAM. 


"Physick,  of  its  own  nature,  has  no  more  uncertainty  or  conjectur- 
alness  than  these  other  noble  professions  of  War,  Law,  Politicks, 
Navigation,  in  all  which  the  event  can  be  no  more  predicted  or  ascer- 
tained than  in  Physick.  and  all  that  the  Artist  is  accomptable  for  is  the 
rational  and  prudent  conduct  that  nothing  be  overdone  or  undone."  — 
Epilogue  to  the  Five  Papers  lately  passed  betwixt  the  two  Physicians, 
Dr.  0.  and  Dr.  E.,  containing  some  remarks  pleasant  and  profitable, 
concerning  the  usefulness  of  VOMITING  and  PUKGIXG  in  FKVEKS,  by 
ANDREW  BROWN,  M.  D. 


DR.  ANDREW  BROWN  AND  SYDENHAM. 


HUNDRED  and  ninety  years  ago,  Dr.  An- 
drew Brown,  the  laird  of  Dolphinton,  was  a 
well-known  and,  indeed,  famous  man  in  Ed- 
inburgh, and  not  unknown  in  London  and  the  general 
medical  world.  Who  now  has  ever  heard  of  him  ?  Sic 
transit.  To  us  in  Edinburgh  he  is  chiefly  memorable 
as  having  been  the  ancestor  of  Dr.  Richard  Mackenzie, 
who  perished  so  nobly  and  lamentably  in  the  Crimea ; 
and  whose  is  one  of  the  many  graves  which  draw  our 
hearts  to  that  bleak  field  of  glory  and  havoc.  We  who 
were  his  fellows  are  not  likely  to  see  again  embodied  so 
much  manly  beauty,  so  much  devotion  to  duty,  so  much 
zeal,  honor,  and  affection. 

But  to  the  profession  in  Scotland  his  great-grand- 
father ought  to  be  better  known  than  he  is,  for  he  was 
the  first  to  introduce  here  the  doctrines  of  Sydenham, 
and  to  recommend  the  use  of  antimonial  emetics  in  the 
first  stage  of  fever.  This  he  did  in  a  little  book  called 
"  A  Vindicatory  Schedule  concerning  the  new  euro  of 
Fevers,  containing  a  disquisition,  theoretical  and  practi- 
cal, of  the  new  and  most  effectual  method  of  cureing 
continual  fevers,  first  invented  and  delivered  by  the  sa- 
gacious Dr.  Thomas  Sydenham."  —  Edin.  1691. 

This  book,  and  its  author's  energetic  advocacy  of  its 
principles  by  his  other  writings  and  by  his  practice,  gave 
rise  to  a  fierce  controversy ;  and  in  the  library  of  the 


224    DR.  ANDREW  BROWN  AND  SYDENHAM. 

Edinburgh  College  of  Physicians,  there  is  a  stout,  shabby 
little  volume  of  pamphlets,  on  both  sides  — <(  Replies," 
and  "  Short  Answers,"  and  "  Refutations,"  and  "  Sur- 
veys," and  "  Looking-glasses,"  "  Defences,"  "  Letters," 
"  Epilogues,"  etc.,  lively  and  furious  once,  but  now  rest- 
ing together  as  quietly  and  as  dead  as  their  authors  are 
in  the  Old  Greyfriars  church-yard,  having  long  ceased 
from  troubling.  There  is  much  curious,  rude,  vigorous, 
hard-headed,  bad-Englished  stuff  in  them,  with  their 
wretched  paper  and  print,  and  general  ugliness  ;  much, 
also,  to  make  us  thankful  that  we  are  in  our  own  now, 
not  their  then.  Such  tearing  away  with  strenuous  logic 
and  good  learning,  at  mere  clouds  and  shadows,  with 
occasional  lucid  intervals  of  sense,  observation,  and  wit, 
tending  too  frequently  to  wul. 

Brown  was  a  Whig,  and  a  friend  of  Andrew  Fletcher 
and  King  William ;  and  in  his  little  book  on  "  The 
Character  of  the  True  Publick  Spirit,"  besides  much 
honest  good  sense  and  advanced  politics,  there  is  a 
clever  and  edifying  parallel  drawn  between  the  diseases 
of  the  body  politic  and  those  of  the  body  natural,  and 
also  an  amusing  classification  of  doctors  ; 1  but  for  all 
this,  and  much  more  excellent  matter,  I  have  no  space 
here.  Dr.  Brown  thus  describes  his  going  up  to  London 
to  visit  Sydenham,  and  see  his  practice :  — 

"But  in  the  year  1687,  perusing  the  first  edition  of 
his  Schedula  Monitoria,  where  he  delivers,  as  confirmed 
by  manifold  experience,  not  only  a  new,  but  a  quite  con- 
trarie  method  to  the  common,  of  curing  Continual  Fe- 
vers :  I  did  long  hesitate,  thinking  that  either  he  or  all 
other  Physicians  were  grossly  deceived  about  the  cure 
of  Fevers;  if  not,  as  their  patients  used  to  be,  they 
l  Xote,  page  232. 


DR.  ANDREW  BROWN  AND  SYDENHAM.    225 

were  in  an  high  delirum  ;  and  lest  the  preconceived 
opinion  that  I  had  of  the  man's  ingenuity  should  so  far 
impose  upon  my  credulity  as  to  draw  me  into  an  error 
likeways  with  him,  and  make  me  to  experiment  that 
method,  when  I  knew  not  but  I  might  run  the  hazard 
to  sacrifice  some  to  my  temerity,  nothing  could  settle 
my  tossed  thoughts  below  the  sight  and  knowledge  of 
the  thing  itself. 

"  Presently,  therefore,  hastening  to  London,  and  hav- 
ing met  with  the  man,  and  exposed  the  occasion  of  my 
coming,  I  found  all  these  tokens  concerning  him  and  his 
practice,  that  use  to  beget  unwarry  persons  and  prudent 
people  making  serious  inquiry,  trust,  and  knowledge. 
Then,  after  some  months  spent  in  this  society,  returning 
home  as  much  overjoyed  as  I  had  gotten  a  treasure,  I 
presently  set  myself  to  that  practice :  which  has  proved 
so  successful  to  me,  that  since  that  time,  of  the  many 
fevers  that  I  have  treated,  none  were  uncured,  except 
my  Lord  Creichton,  whose  case  is  related  here ;  and 
another  woman,  whose  dangerous  circumstances  made 
her  condition  hopeless." 

There  is  a  well-known  story  of  Sydenham.  which 
goes  by  the  name  of  "  The  Lettsom  Anecdote."  Dr. 
Latham  says  it  was  communicated  by  Dr.  Lettsom  to 
the  Gentleman's  Magazine  of  August  1801,  and  was 
copied  by  him  from  the  fly-leaf  of  a  copy  of  the  Metho- 
dus  curandi  febris,  which  had  been  in  the  possession  of 
Dr.  Sherson's  family  for  fifty  years.  He  then  quotes 
the  story.  I  was  much  surprised  and  pleased  to  find  the 
original  in  Dr.  Brown's  Vindicatory  Schedule.  It  dif- 
fers in  some  respects  from  the  second-hand  one,  and  no 
one  after  reading  it  can  have  any  doubts  that  Sydenham 
bore  arms  for  the  Commonwealth. 
15 


226    DR.  ANDREW  BROWN  AND  SYDENHAM. 

Dolphin  ton  (as  he  was  called  by  his  townsmen)  writes 
as  follows :  — 

"  Neither  can  it  go  well  away  with  good  men,  to  think, 
that  this  great  man,  so  oft  by  strange  and  special  Provi- 
dences pluckt  out  of  the  very  jaws  of  death,  has  been 
preserved  for  an  imposture,  so  dismale  to  mankind : 
Tho'  I  cannot  stay  to  reckon  all  the  dangers  among  the 
calamities  of  the  late  civil  warrs  (where  he  was  an 
actor)  that  passed  with  great  difficulty  over  his  head, 
as  his  being  left  in  the  field  among  the  dead,  and  many 
other  dangers  he  met  with :  yet  there  is  one  that,  repre- 
senting rather  a  miracle  than  a  common  providence, 
cannot  be  passed  over,  which,  as  I  had  from  his  own 
mouth,  is  thus,  at  the  same  time  of  these  civil  warrs, 
where  he  discharged  the  office  of  a  captain,  he  being  in 
his  lodging  at  London,  and  going  to  bed  at  night,  with 
his  cloaths  loosed,  a  mad  drunk  fellow,  a  souldier,  like- 
wise in  the  same  lodging,  entering  the  room,  with  one 
hand  gripping  him  by  the  breast  of  his  shirt,  with  the 
other  discharged  a  loaden  pistol  in  his  bosome,  yet,  O 
strange !  without  any  hurt  to  him,  most  wonderfully  in- 
deed, by  such  a  narrow  sheild  as  the  edge  of  the  soul- 
dier's  hand,  was  his  breast  defended ;  for  the  admirable 
providence  of  God  placed  and  fixed  the  tottering  hand 
that  gripped  the  shirt  into  that  place  and  posture,  that 
the  edge  thereof  and  all  the  bones  of  the  metacarpe  that 
make  up  the  breadth  of  the  hand,  were  situate  in  a  right 
line  betwixt  the  mouth  of  the  pistol  and  his  breast,  and 
so  the  bullet  discharged  neither  declining  to  the  one 
side  nor  to  the  other,  but  keeping  its  way  thorrow  all 
these  bones,  in  crushing  them  lost  its  force,  and  fell  at 
his  feet.  O  !  wonderful  situation  of  the  hand,  and  more 
wonderful  course  of  the  bullet !  by  any  industry  or  art 


DR.  ANDREW  BROWN  AND  SYDENHAM.    227 

never  again  imitable  !  And  moreover  within  a  few  days 
the  souldier,  taken  with  a  fever  arising  from  so  danger- 
ous and  complicat  a  wound,  died ;  surely  Providence 
does  not  bring  furth  so  stupendous  miracles,  but  for 
some  great  and  equivalent  end." 

We  may  take  the  Doctor's  facts  without  homologat- 
ing his  conclusions.  There  is  nothing  here  indicating 
on  what  side  Sydenham  served,  but  all  the  probabilities 
from  family  connection,  from  his  own  incidental  expres- 
sions and  other  circumstances,  and  his  having  to  flee 
from  Oxford,  the  headquarters  of  the  Royalists,  etc.,  go 
to  make  it  more  than  likely  that  he  was  what  his  labo- 
rious, ineffectual,  and  latest  biographer  calls,  in  his  un- 
wieldly  phrase,  a  "  Parliamentarian." 

This  passage  is  followed  by  a  remarkable  statement 
by  Dr.  Brown,  as  to  the  persecution  of  Sydenham  by 
his  brethren.  This  is  peculiarly  valuable  as  coming  from 
one  personally  acquainted  with  the  great  physician,  hav- 
ing heard  these  things  "  from  his  own  mouth,"  and  being 
published  two  years  after  his  death.  Dr.  Latham  can- 
not now  have  any  doubt  as  to  the  envy  and  uncharitable- 
ness  of  the  profession,  and  the  endeavor  of  his  "  collegi- 
ate brethren "  to  banish  him  out  of  "  that  illustrious 
society "  for  "  medicinal  heresie."  I  give  the  entire 
passage,  as  I  have  never  before  seen  it  noticed. 

"  And  further  can  it  be  thought  that  this  great  man, 
who  in  all  the  course  of  his  life  gave  so  full  evidence  of 
an  ingenuous,  generous,  and  perspicatious  spirit,  would 
or  could  die  an  imposter  and  murderer  of  mankind 
(which  imputation  to  deserve,  he  frequently  professed, 
would  be  more  heavy  to  him  than  any  punishment  could 
be),  for  he  it  was,  despising  the  blandishments  of  the 
world,  popular  applause,  riches,  and  honor,  yea  his  own 


228    DR.  ANDREW  BROWN  AND  SYDENHAM. 

health  wasted  with  intense  and  assiduous  meditations 
and  thoughtfulness,  that  liberally  sacrificed  them  all  for 
the  publick  good :  In  so  far,  that  after  he  had  long 
weighed  and  expended  the  common  and  received  meth- 
ods of  curing  most  diseases,  and  therefore  had  forsaken 
and  relinquished  them  as  vain  and  improper,  and  after 
his  intimate  search  into  the  bowels  of  nature  he  had  dis- 
covered others  more  aposite  and  powerful ;  He  thereby 
only  gained  the  sad  and  unjust  recompence  of  calumny 
and  ignominy ;  and  that  from  the  emulation  of  some  of 
his  collegiate  brethren,  and  others,  whose  indignation  at 
length  did  culminat  to  that  hight,  that  they  endeavored 
to  banish  him,  as  guilty  of  medicinal  heresie,  out  of  that 
illustrious  society ;  and  by  the  whisperings  of  others  he 
was  baulked  the  imployment  in  the  Royal  Family,  where 
before  that  he  was  called  among  the  first  physicians." 

He  then  names  those  who  had  publicly  given  in  their 
adhesion  to  the  new  doctrines  —  Dr.  Goodal,  Dr.  Brady, 
Dr.  Paman,  Dr.  Cole,  Dr.  Ettmuller  of  Leipsic,  Dr. 
Doleus,  physician  to  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  Dr.  Spon 
of  Lyons,  Dr.  Michelthwait  of  London,  Dr.  Morton, 
and  Dr.  Harris;  all  these  before  1691. 

Amid  the  dreary  unreadable  rubbish  in  this  old  bun- 
dle, there  is  a  most  characteristic  onslaught  by  the 
famous  Dr.  George  Cheyne  upon  Dr.  Oliphant,  Dolphin- 
ton's  friend  and  defender ;  it  is  his  pugilistic,  honest, 
reckless  style,  and  is  valuable  for  the  testimony  he  — 
(at  this  time)  a  free-thinker  in  religion,  and  a  mathemat- 
ical and  mechanical  physician  (he  is  defending  Dr.  Pit- 
cairn) —  gives  to  the  strictly  Divine  origin  of  animal 
species.  "  All  animals,  of  what  kind  soever,  were  origi- 
nally and  actually  created  at  once  by  the  hand  of  Al- 
mighty God,  it  being  impossible  to  account  for  their 


DR.  ANDREW  BROWN  AND  SYDENHAM.    229 

production  by  any  laws  of  mechanism :  and  that  every 
individual  animal  has,  in  minimis,  actually  included  in 
its  loins  all  those  who  shall  descend  from  it,  and  every 
one  of  these  again  have  all  their  offspring  lodged  in 
their  loins,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum  ;  and  that  all  these 
infinite  numbers  of  animalcules  may  be  lodged  in  the 
bigness  of  a  pin's  head."  Our  own  Owen  would  relish 
this  intrepid  and  robust  old  speculator.  But  the  jewel 
of  this  old  book  is  a  letter  from  a  physician  at  London, 
appended  to  Dr.  Oliphant's  answer  to  the  pretended  re- 
futation of  his  defence.  I  am  sure  my  readers  will  agree 
with  the  Doctor,  that  it  is  "  neither  impertinent  nor  tedi- 
ous," and  that  it  must  have  been  written  "  by  one  whose 
wit  and  good  humor  are  equal  to  his  learning  and  inge- 
nuity." 

There  was  one  man  in  London,  a  young  Scotch  phy- 
sician, who  could  have  written  this,  and  we  may  say, 
Aut  Arbut/inot,  out  quis  ?  All  the  chances  are  in  favor 
of  its  being  that  famous  wit  and  admirable  man,  of 
whom  Pope  says,  "  Swift  said  '  he  could  do  everything 
but  walk ; '  "  and  Pope  himself  thinks  he  was  "  as  good 
a  doctor  as  any  man  for  one  that  is  ill,  and  a  better  doc- 
tor for  one  that  is  well."  He  had  shortly  before  this 
gone  up  to  London  from  Aberdeen,  and  had  published 
in  1697,  his  examination  of  Dr.  Woodward's  Account  of 
the  Deluge. 

"  DEAR  SIB,  —  I  thank  you  for  the  present  of  your 
small  Treatise  about  Vomiting  in  Fevers,  but  at  the 
same  time  I  approve  of  your  reasons,  you  must  give  me 
leave  to  condemn  your  conduct :  I  know  you  begin  to 
storm  at  this  ;  but  have  a  little  patience.  There  was  a 
physician  of  this  town,  perhaps  the  most  famous  in  his 


230    DR.  ANDREW  BROWN  AND  SYDENHAM. 

time,  being  called  to  his  patient,  complaining  (it  may 
be)  of  an  oppression  at  his  stomach ;  he  would  very 
safely  and  cautiously  order  him  a  decoction  of  carduus, 
sometimes  hot  water ;  I  don't  know  but  he  would  allow 
now  and  then  fat  mutton  broth  too.  The  patient  was 
vomited,  and  the  doctor  could  justifie  himself  that  he 
had  not  omitted  that  necessary  evacuation  ;  this  was  his 
constant  practice.  Being  chid  by  his  collegues,  who 
well  knew  he  neglected  antimony,  not  out  of  ignorance 
or  fear,  he  would  roguishly  tell  them,  '  Come,  come, 
gentlemen,  that  might  cure  my  patient,  but  it  would  kill 
the  distemper,  and  I  should  have  less  money  in  my 
pocket.  A  pretty  business  indeed,  a  rich  citizen  over- 
gorges  himself,  which  by  management  may  be  improved 
into  a  good  substantial  fever,  worth  at  least  twenty  guin- 
eas ;  and  you  would  have  me  nip  the  plant  in  the  bud, 
have  a  guinea  for  my  pains,  and  lose  the  reputation  of  a 
safe  practitioner  to  boot.'  The  gentleman  had  reason, 
all  trades  must  live.  Alas !  our  people  here  are  grown 
too  quick-sighted,  they  will  have  antimonial  vomits,  and 
a  physician  dares  not  omit  them,  tho'  it  is  many  a  good 
fee  out  of  his  pocket.  Join,  I  say,  with  these  wise  gen- 
tlemen ;  they  wish  well  to  the  Faculty ;  procure  an 
order  of  the  Colledge,  and  banish  antimony  the  city  of 
Edinburgh,  and  the  liberties  thereof.  'Tis  a,  barbarous 
thing  in  these  hard  times  to  strangle  an  infant  distem- 
per; they  ought  no  more  to  be  murdered  than  young 
cattle  in  Lent.  Let  it  be  as  great  a  crime  to  kill  a 
fever  with  an  autimonial  vomit,  as  to  fish  in  spawning 
time.  The  Dutch  physicians  are  like  the  rest  of  their 
nation  wise  ;  they  banish  that  heathenish  Jesuitical  drug, 
that  would  quickly  reduce  their  practice  to  a  narrow 
compass  in  the  hopefulest  distemper  of  the  country 


DR.  ANDREW  BROWN  AND  STDENHAM.    231 

These  rogues  that  dream  of  nothing  but  specificks  and 
panaceas,  I  would  have  them  all  hang'd,  not  so  much 
for  the  folly  of  the  attempt,  as  the  malice  of  their  inten- 
tion ;  rascals,  to  starve  so  many  worthy  gentlemen,  that 
perhaps  know  no  otherwise  to  get  their  livelihood.  Will 
the  glasiers  ever  puzzle  themselves  to  make  glass  malle- 
able, would  the  knitters  ever  so  much  as  have  dreamed 
of  a  stocking-loom,  or  the  young  writers  petition'd  to 
have  informations  printed ;  all  those  are  wise  in  their 
generation,  and  must  the  physicians  be  the  only  fools  ? 

"We  all  know,here  there  is  no  danger  in  antimonial 
vomits,  but  this  is  inter  nos  ;  you  must  not  tell  your  pa- 
tient so ;  let  him  believe,  as  I  said  before,  that  anti- 
monial vomits  are  dangerous,  deleterial,  break  the  fibres 
of  the  stomach,  etc.,  and  that  you  cannot  safely  give 
them.  So  shall  you  be  stiled  a  cautious,  safe  physician, 
one  that  won't  spoil  the  curll  of  a  man's  hair  to  pull 
him  out  of  the  river.  We  have  some  dangerous  dogs 
here,  that  in  a  quinsy,  when  a  man  is  ready  to  be  chock'd, 
will  blood  him  forty  ounces  at  once:  is  not  this  ex- 
treamly  hazardous?  They  cut  off  limbs;  cut  for  the 
stone  ;  is  this  safe  ?  I  tell  you,  the  reputation  of  a 
wary,  safe  physician  is  worth  all  the  parts  of  his  char- 
acter besides.  Now  I  hope  you  will  allow  I  have  reason 
for  what  I  said. 

"  I  have  seen  the  Melius  Inquirendum,  and  am  too 
well  acquainted  with  the  stile  and  spelling,  not  to  know 
that  it  is  Dr.  Eyzat's  ;  but  here  I  must  be  with  you 
again  :  how  come  you  to  write  against  one  that  says  two 
drams  of  emetick  wine  is  a  sufficient  doze  for  a  man  ? 
Suffer  not  such  things  to  come  abroad  ;  they  will  imag- 
ine you  are  not  got  so  far  as  the  circulation  of  the  blood 
in  Scotland;  write  seriously  against  such  people.  Fy 


232    DR.  ANDREW  BROWN  AND  SYDENHAM. 

upon't,  I  will  never  allow  them  to  be  above  the  dispen- 
sation of  ballads  and  doggrel,  etc.  —  I  am,  Sir,  yours,  etc. 
"LONDON,  August  23,  1699." 

Nothing  can  be  finer  than  the  edge  of  this,  nothing 
pleasanter  than  its  pleasantry ;  that  about  murdering 
young  cattle  in  Lent,  and  the  "  curll,"  is  Charles  Lamb 
all  over ;  we  know  no  one  nowadays  who  could  write 
thus,  except  the  author  of  Esmond. 


NOTE.— P.  224. 

CLASSIFICATION     OF    DOCTORS 

1.  THOSE  who  drive  the  trade  of  bon  companionrie  and  good-fellow- 
ship. 2.  The  high-flown  bigots  in  religion  or  State.  3.  Hangers-on 
of  great  families,  "as  having  been  domesticks!"  4.  Those  of  "a 
gentile  meen."  Here  is  Dr.  Beddoes'  more  elaborate  latrologia,  or 
Linnsean  method  of  physicians,  like  Baron  Born's,  of  the  Monks. 

1.  The  philanthropic  doctor,  having  two  varieties,  a.  and  0,  the  shy 
and  the  renegado.  2.  The  bullying  D.,  with  Radcliffe  at  their  head. 
3.  The  Bacchanalian  D.  4.  The  solemn  D.  5.  The  club-hunting  D. 
6.  The  Burr  D.,  centaurea  calcitrapa.  7.  The  wheedling  D.,  with  the 
variety  of  the  Adonis  wheedling  D.  8.  The  case-coining  D.  9.  The 
good-sort-of-man  D.,  with  variety,  and  the  gossiping  good-sort-of-man 
D.,  who  "fetches  and  carries  scandal."  10.  The  sectarian  D. ;  vari- 
ety a,  the  inspired  sectarian  D. 

Beddoes  concludes  this  Decade  of  Doctors,  with  notandum  est  in  toto 
hoc  genere  naturam  mirabiles  edere  lusvs.  This  is  applicable  to  all 
the  species,  there  being  mules  and  hybrids,  and  occasionally  monsters 
magnificent  and  dreadful,  like  Paracelsus. 

Hartley  Coleridge,  in  his  pleasant  Life  of  Fothergill,  after  alluding 
to  this  latrology,  has  the  following  on  the  exoteric  qualifications  of  a 
doctor :  — 

"  Of  these  exoteric  qualifications,  some  are  outward  and  visible;  as 
a  good  gentlemanl}r  person,  not  alarmingly  handsome  (for  the  Adonis 
Doctor,  though  he  has  a  fair  opening  to  a  wealthy  marriage,  seldom 
greatly  prospers  in  the  way  of  business),  with  an  address  to  suit  — 
*hat  is  to  say,  a  genteel  self-possession  and  subdued  politeness,  not  of 


DR.   ANDREW  BROWN  AND   SYDENHAM.          233 

the  very  last  polish  —  a  slow,  low,  and  regular  tone  of  voice  (here  Dr. 
Fothergill's  Quaker  habits  must  have  been  an  excellent  preparative), 
and  such  an  even  flow  of  spirits  as  neither  to  be  dejected  by  the  sight 
of  pain  and  the  weight  of  responsibility,  nor  to  offend  the  anxious  and 
the  suffering  by  an  unsympathetic  hilarity.  The  dress  should  be  neat. 
and  rather  above  than  below  par  in  costliness. 

"  In  fine,  the  young  physician  should  carry  a  something  of  his  pro- 
fession in  his  outward  man,  but  yet  so  that  nobody  should  be  able  to 
say  what  it  was." 


FREE  COMPETITION  IN  MEDICINE. 


"  That  doctors  are  sometimes  fools  as  well  as  other  people,  {s  not,  in 
the  present  times,  one  of  those  profound  secrets  which  is  known  only  to 
the  learned  ;  it  very  seldom  happens  that  a  man  trusts  his  health  to  an. 
other,  merely  because  that  other  is  an  M.  D.  The  person  so  trusted 
has  almost  always  either  some  knowledge,  or  some  craft,  which  would 
procure  him  nearly  the  same  trust,  though  he  was  not  decorated  with 
any  such  title  !  Adieu- !  my  dear  doctor ;  I  am  afraid  I  shall  get  my 
lug  (ear)  in  my  lufe  (hand),  as  we  say,  for  what  I  have  written."  — 
ADAM  SMITH  to  DB.  CULLEN,  September  20,  1774. 

"  Lawyers,  soldiers,  tax-gatherers,  policemen,  are  appendages  of  a 
state,  and  some  account  should  be  taken  of  them  by  the  civil  power. 
The  clergy  are  officers  of  the  church,  and  if  the  church  is  a  divine  in- 
stitution, they  should  have  her  license.  Doctors  are  the  ministers  of 
physical  humanity  at  large,  and  should,  for  a  thousand  good  reasons, 
be  left  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  leviathanic  man  whom  they  serve, 
yet  under  this  condition,  that  they  shall  be  answerable  to  the  civil  power 
for  bodily  injuries  culpably  inflicted  upon  any  of  its  subjects.'"  —  Cov- 

ENTKY  DlCK. 


FREE  COMPETITION  IN  MEDICINE. 

HAVE  long  thought  that  it  was  nonsense  an> 
worse,  the  avowed  and  universal  exception  o 
the  craft  of  healing  from  the  action  of  Adanr 
Smith's  law  of  free  competition,  introducing  legislativ< 
enactment  and  license  into  the  public  relations  of  medi 
cine,  thus  constituting  a  virtual  monopoly.  I  may  ba 
permitted  to  express  this  in  an  extract  from  a  Review 
of  Professor  Syme  and  Dr.  Burt's  Letters  to  Lord  Pal- 
merston,  on  Medical  Reform.1 

"  And  now  for  a  closing  word  for  ourselves.  Mr 
Syme's  scheme  is,  as  we  have  fully  stated,  the  best,  the 
simplest,  and  the  least  objectionable,  if  it  be  wise  and 
necessary  for  the  State  to  do  anything  in  the  matter. 
There  is  much  in  this  if;  and  after  consideration  of  this 
difficult  and  little-understood  subject,  we  are  inclined  to 
hold,  that  Adam  Smith's  law  of  free  competition  is  ab- 
solute, and  applies  to  the  doctors  of  the  community  as 
well  as  to  its  shoemakers.  In  a  letter  to  Dr.  Cullen, 
published  for  the  first  time  by  Dr.  John  Thomson,  in 
his  life  of  that  great  physician,  written  before  the  pub' 
lication  of  The  Wealth  of  Nations,  he,  with  excellent 
humor,  argument,  and  sense,  asserts  that  human  nature 
may  be  allowed  safely,  and  with  advantage,  to  choose 
its  own  doctor,  as  it  does  its  own  wife  or  tailor.  We 
recommend  this  sagacious  letter  to  the  serious  attention 
1  Edinburgh  Medical  Journal  December,  1857. 


238  FREE   COMPETITION  IN  MEDICINE. 

of  all  concerned.  We  give  some  specimens ;  its  date  is 
1774 :  '  When  a  man  has  learned  his  lesson  well,  it 
surely  can  be  of  little  importance  where,  or  from  whom 
he  has  learnt  it.  ...  In  the  Medical  College  of  Edin- 
burgh, in  particular,  the  salaries  of  the  professors  are 
insignificant,  and  their  monopoly  of  degrees  is  broken 
in  upon  by  all  other  universities,  foreign  and  domestic. 
I  require  no  other  explication  of  its  present  acknowl- 
edged superiority  over  every  other  society  of  the  same 
kind  in  Europe.  ...  A  degree  can  pretend  to  give  se- 
curity for  nothing  but  the  science  of  the  graduate,  and 
even  for  that  it  can  give  but  very  slender  security.  For 
his  good  sense  and  discretion,  qualities  not  discoverable 
by  an  academical  examination,  it  can  give  no  security 
at  all.  .  .  .  Had  the  Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge been  able  to  maintain  themselves  in  the  exclusive 
privilege  of  graduating  all  the  doctors  who  could  prac- 
tise in  England,  the  price  of  feeling  a  pulse  might  have 
by  this  time  risen  from  two  and  three  guineas '  (would 
that '  Time  would  run  back  and  fetch  that  age  of  gold  ! ') 
'  the  price  which  it  has  now  happily  arrived  at,  to  double 
or  triple  that  sum.  .  .  .  The  great  success  of  quackery 
in  England  has  been  altogether  owing  to  the  real  quack- 
ery of  the  regular  physicians.  Our  regular  physicians 
in  Scotland  have  little  quackery,  and  no  quack,  accord- 
ingly, has  ever  made  his  fortune  among  us.' 

"Dr.  Thomson  did  not  find  in  Dr.  Cullen's  papers 
any  direct  replies  to  the  arguments  of  his  friend ;  but  in 
a  Latin  discourse  pronounced  two  years  afterwards,  at 
the  graduation,  he  took  occasion  to  state  in  what  respects 
the  principles  of  free  competition,  though  applicable  to 
mechanical  trades,  do,  in  his  opinion,  not  extend  to  the 
exercise  of  the  profession  of  medicine.  His  argument 


FREE   COMPETITION  IN  MEDICINE.  239 

is  conducted  temperately,  and  by  no  means  confidently. 
He  remarks,  with  sagacity  and  candor,  '  that  there  are 
some  who  doubt  whether  it  is  for  the  interest  of  society, 
or  in  any  way  proper,  to  make  laws  or  regulations  for 
preventing  unskilled  or  uneducated  persons  from  engag- 
'ng  in  the  practice  of  medicine ;  and  it  is  very  obviou* 
that  neither  in  this  nor  in  most  other  countries,  are  effec- 
tual measures  adopted  for  this  purpose.'  His  argument 
is  the  common  and  we  think  unsound  one,  that  mankind 
can  judge  of  its  carpenter,  but  not  of  its  doctor;  and 
that  in  the  one  case,  life  is  at  stake,  and  not  in  the 
other,  a  fallacy  easily  exposed  —  a  floor  may  fall  in  and 
kill  dozens,  from  bad  joinery,  as  well  as  a  man  die  from 
mala  praxis.  We  believe  that  the  same  common  sense 
regulates,  or  at  least  may  regulate,  the  choice  of  your 
family  doctor,  as  it  does  the  choice  of  your  architect, 
engineer,  or  teacher. 

"  If  a  man  choose  his  architect  or  engineer  from  his 
own  personal  knowledge  of  their  respective  arts  and  sci- 
ences, he  must  either  choose  himself,  and  forget  his 
stair,  or  make  very  sure  of  choosing  the  wrong  man ;  in 
this,  as  in  so  many  things,  we  depend  on  testimony  and 
general  evidence  of  capacity  and  worth. 

"  In  a  word,  our  petition  to  Parliament  is,  Make  a 
clean  sweep ;  remove  every  legislative  enactment  re- 
garding the  practice  of  medicine ;  leave  it  as  free,  as 
unprotected,  as  unlicensed,  as  baking  or  knife-grinding ; 
let  our  Colleges  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons,  Faculties, 
and  Worshipful  Companies,  make  what  terms  they  like 
for  those  who  choose  to  enter  them ;  let  the  Horse 
Guards,  let  the  Customs,  let  the  Poor  Law  Boards,  let 
the  Cunard  Company,  demand  and  exact  any  qualifica- 
tion they  choose  for  the  medical  men  they  employ  and 


240  FREE   COMPETITION  IN   MEDICINE. 

pay,  just  as  Lord  Breadalbane  may,  if  he  like,  require 
red  hair  and  Swedenborgism,  in  his  Lordship's  surgeon 
to  his  slate  quarries  at  Easdale.  Give  the  principle  its 
full  swing,  and,  by  so  doing,  be  assured  we  would  lose 
some  of  our  worst  Quacks ;  but  we  would  not  lose  our 
Alisons,  our  Symes,  our  Christisons,  Begbies,  and  Kil- 
gours,  or  our  Brodies,  Lathams,  Brights,  Watsons,  and 
Clarks ;  and  we  would,  we  are  persuaded,  have  more  of 
the  rough-and-readies,  as  Dr.  Burt  calls  them.  Gideon 
Gray  would  have  an  easier  mind,  and  more  to  feed  him- 
self and  his  horse  on,  and  his  life  would  be  more  largely 
insured  for  his  wife  and  children.  And  if  from  the 
corporate  bodies,  who  are  trying  to  live  after  they  are 
dead,  the  ancient  cry  of  compensation  rises  up  wild  and 
shrill,  give  the  Belisarii  their  pence,  and  let  them  be 
contemptible  and  content." 

But  let  there  be  no  interference,  under  the  name  of 
qualification  or  license,  with  free  trade  in  medical  knowl- 
edge and  skill.  There  is  in  the  body  politic,  as  in  the 
body  natural,  a  self-regulating  power  to  which  we  ought 
to  take  heed,  and  trust  its  instincts,  and  not  our  own 
contrivances.  This  holds  in  religion,  in  public  morals, 
in  education ;  and  we  will  never  prosper  as  we  might 
till  we  take  the  advice  Henry  Taylor  relates  that  an  old 
lady  of  rank  gave  to  her  anxious  daughter-in-law,  when 
asked  by  her  what  she  would  advise  as  to  the  education 
of  children :  "  I  would  advise,  my  dear,  a  little  whole- 
some neglect." 


EDWARD  FORBES. 


"Nature  never  did  betray 

The  heart  that  loved  her ;   't  is  her  privilege, 
Through  all  the  years  of  this  our  life,  to  lead 
From  joy  to  joy  :  for  she  can  so  inform 
The  mind  that  is  within  us,  so  impress 
With  quietness  and  beauty,  and  so  feed 
With  lofty  thoughts,  that  neither  evil  tongues, 
Hash  judgments,  nor  the  sneers  of  selfish  men, 
Nor  greetings  where  no  kindness  is,  nor  all 
The  dreary  intercourse  of  daily  life, 
Shall  e'er  prevail  against  us,  or  disturb 
Our  cheerful  faith,  that  all  which  we  behold 
Is  full  of  blessings." 

WOBDSWOETH. 


16 


EDWARD  FORBES.1 

E  have  too  long  delayed  noticing  the  memoir 
of  this  delightful  man  —  the  gifted  teacher, 
the  consummate  naturalist.  Indeed,  it  is  so 
long  now  since  we  read  it,  and  so  long  since  all  the 
world  has  done  so,  that  we  cannot  and  need  not  go  into 
the  details  of  his  life  and  history,  or  into  any  minute 
criticism  of  the  treatment  of  their  theme  by  his  two  bi- 
ographers, Dr.  George  Wilson  and  Mr.  Geikie. 

It  is  an  interesting  and  a  likeable  book,  loose  in  its 
texture  in  the  first  half,  from  the  natural  tendency,  on 
the  part  of  its  genial  author,  to  expatiate  and  effloresce ; 
and  deficient  necessarily  in  personality  in  the  second, 
which,  however,  is  most  ably  and  thoroughly  done  from 
its  writer's  point  of  view,  — just,  painstaking,  and  full  of 
excellent  science.  Mr.  Geikie's  genius  is  mainly  geolog- 
ical, and  it  is  well  that  it  is  so ;  but  he  writes  with 
clearness  and  force  ;  and  judgment  in  its  own  place  is 
always  better  than  genius  out  of  it.  There  are  exquisite 
bits,  perfect  flowers  for  fragrance  and  beauty  in  Dr.  Wil- 
son's sketch.  The  account  of  Edinburgh  College  life, 
and  all  about  that  great  and  primary  man,  that  master 
in  natural  history,  Professor  Jameson,  —  a  man  of  rare 
purity,  and  force  of  life  and  purpose,  and  most  genuinely 
good,  —  is  quick  with  our  lost  friend's  fine  play  of  fancy, 
and  his  affectionate  humor ;  but  it  labors,  as  we  all  to 
1  From  The  Scotsman. 


244  EDWARD   FORBES. 

our  sorrow  know,  under  the  loss  of  his  revision.  The 
first  chapter,  on  the  Isle  of  Man  and  its  tailless  cats,  is 
out  of  all  proportion,  and  with  its  information  and  fun 
is  more  suited  to  the  Odds  and  Ends  of  a  Manx  his- 
torian of  the  Knickerbocker  breed,  than  to  the  work 
of  a  steady  biographer.  The  next  chapter,  on  Edward 
Forbes's  infant  and  boyish  years,  is  finely  done,  devel- 
oping with  a  tender  and  firm  touch  the  natural  bent  of 
his  mind,  and  showing  how  truly  "  the  child  is  father  of 
the  man." 

Edward  Forbes  was  one  of  four  men  who  studied  to- 
gether at  Edinburgh,  all  bound  together  closely,  but 
each  curiously  different  from  the  rest.  Samuel  Brown, 
George  Wilson,  and  John  Goodsir  were  the  others. 
The  last  —  in  many  respects  the  greatest,  certainly  the 
completest  and  most  satisfying  —  still  lives,  one  of  the 
main  glories  of  our  medical  school,  a  man  who  will 
leave  a  name  not  unworthy  to  be  placed  alongside  of 
John  Hunter's.  He  has  no  speciality,  but  is  a  true  dis- 
serner  and  discoverer  of  nature,  a  teacher  of  what  he 
himself  knows.  It  is  impossible  to  overrate  his  influence 
in  our  medical  school  in  grounding  the  students  in  a 
genuine  anatomy,  and  in  basing  speculation  of  the  widest, 
the  most  daring,  and  transcendental  kind  upon  down- 
right matter  of  fact. 

Edward  Forbes  was  a  child  of  Nature,  and  he  lived  in 
her  presence  and  observance.  She  was  his  Alma  Mater 
to  the  end.  He  enjoyed  science ;  this  was  the  chief  end 
to  him  of  life ;  its  bloom,  and  its  fruit,  and  its  own  ex- 
ceeding great  reward. 

George  Wilson  made  science  enjoyable  to  others ;  he 
illustrated,  adorned,  and  commended  it ;  standing,  as  it 
were,  with  his  face  to  the  world,  he  told  what  of  the 


EDWARD   FORBES.  245 

mystery  and  truth  of  science  it  could  or  cared  to  know 
—  and  itsfacetice  too,  for  he  was  an  inveterate  wag,  — 
having  more  wit  than  humor,  and  less  imagination  than 
fancy. 

Samuel  Brown  was  his  typical  reverse.  He  stood 
with  his  back  to  the  public,  intent  at  the  high  altar  of 
his  service,  bent  on  questioning,  on  divination,  and  on 
making  nature  reveal  her  secret.  He  worked  up  the 
stream ;  his  was  that  science  of  sciences  which  is  philos- 
ophy proper.  He  desired  to  bring  knowledge  to  a 
point,  to  draw  all  multiformity  into  the  focus  of  unity. 

Goodsir  advances  it  as  a  whole,  and  makes  it  our  in- 
heritance, while  he  enriches  it  with  something  from  the 
stores  of  his  other  brethren. 

In  an  eloquent  and  tender  eloge  upon  Dr.  Samuel 
Brown,  in  the  North  British  Review  for  February  1857, 
there  is  quoted  from  his  private  journal,  with  which  he 
whiled  away  his  long  hours  of  languor,  solitude,  and 
pain,  the  following  portrait  of  his  former  colleague  and 
companion,  written  on  hearing  of  his  sudden  death. 
Surely  if  there  is  much  matter  like  this  in  that  journal, 
xhe  world  would  like  to  have  more  of  it  some  day. 

''  Edward  Forbes  is  dead  and  buried  before  me ;  — 
died  this  day  week,  —  was  buried  on  Thursday.  (  He  be- 
haved at  the  close  with  his  old  composure,  considerate- 
ness,  and  sweetness  of  nature,'  writes  Dr.  John.  This 
is  a  great  public  loss,  —  a  pungent  public  grief  too  ;  but 
to  us,  his  friends,  it  is  '  past  the  blasphemy  of  grief.' 
Surely  it  is  '  wondrous  in  our  eyes.'  Not  forty  yet ; 
his  work  sketched  out  largely,  rather  than  done :  his 
proper  career,  as  the  Edinburgh  Professor  of  Natural 
History,  just  opened,  and  that  with  unusual  brilliancy  of 
circumstance,  —  Edinburgh,  young  and  old,  proud  to 


246  EDWARD  FORBES. 

receive  him  as  her  new  great  man,  —  the  Naturalists 
of  Scotland  rising  up  to  call  the  Manxman  blessed  — 
'  The  pity  of  it,  oh  the  pity  of  it ! ' 

"  We  began  our  public  career  almost  together.  He 
in  his  twenty-fifth,  I  in  my  twenty-third  year,  delivered 
at  Edinburgh  a  joint  course  of  lectures  on  the  Philoso- 
phy of  the  Sciences,  —  he  the  graphic  or  static,  I  the 
principal  or  dynamic  hemisphere  of  the  round.  Tall  for 
his  strength,  slightly  round-shouldered,  slightly  in-bent 
legs,  but  elegant,  with  a  fine  round  head  and  long  face, 
a  broad,  beautifully  arched  forehead,  long  dim-brown 
hair  like  a  woman's,  a  slight  moustache,  no  beard,  long- 
limbed,  long-fingered,  lean,  —  such  was  one  of  the  most 
interesting  figures  ever  before  an  Edinburgh  audience. 
His  voice  was  not  good,  his  manner  not  flowing,  —  not 
even  easy.  He  was  not  eloquent,  but  he  said  the  right 
sort  of  thing  in  a  right  sort  of  way  ;  and  there  was  such 
an  air  of  mastery  about  him,  of  genius,  of  geniality,  of 
unspeakable  good  nature,  that  he  won  all  hearts,  and 
subdued  all  minds,  and  kept  all  imaginations  prisoners 
for  life.  Nobody  that  has  not  heard  him  can  conceive 
the  charm. 

"  In  natural  history  his  labors  are  acknowledged  by 
his  peers ;  and  it  is  not  for  a  chemist  to  say  a  word. 
Vet  I  fancy  he  has  made  no  memorable  discovery,  —  ini- 
tiated no  critical  movement.  It  is  by  the  width  of  his 
views  he  has  told,  and  by  his  personal  influence.  In 
short,  he  is  a  first-rate  naturalist,  near-sighted  and  far- 
sighted,  and  eminently  disposed  and  able  to  reduce  the 
chaos  of  observation  to  order,  and  to  discern  the  one 
soul  of  nature  in  all  her  manifold  body  of  members; 
but  he  has  not  shown  himself  inventive,  like  Linnaeus 
or  Cuvier,  or  even  Buffon.  His  true  greatness  was  cu- 


EDWARD  FORBES.  247 

mulative ;  and  if  he  had  lived  as  long,  he  might  have 
rivalled  Humboldt.  As  it  is,  he  was  not  a  philosopher, 
nor  a  great  discoverer ;  but  he  was  a  consummate  and 
philosophical  naturalist,  wider  than  any  man  alive  in  his 
kind.  Add  to  that  noble  distinction,  that  he  was  much 
of  an  artist,  not  a  little  of  a  man  of  letters,  something 
of  a  scholar,  a  humorist,  the  very  most  amiable  of  men, 

perfect  gentleman,  and  a  beautiful  pard-like  creature, 
'a.id  you  have  our  Hyperion,  —  gone  down,  alas  !  ere  it 
was  yet  noon !  After  all,  what  a  combination  of  charms  ! 
what  a  constellation  of  gifts!  what  a  man!  Edward 
Forbes  was  a  sweet,  wise,  broad,  and  sunny  great  kind 
of  man,  else  I  do  not  know  a  nobleman  when  I  see  him. 

"  As  for  religion,  I  can  only  say  he  never  talked  in- 
fidelities, even  in  our  rash  youth.  He  always  abided  by 
the  church,  though  he  rarely  frequented  its  tabernacles. 
He  was  a  kind  of  half-intellectual,  half-sesthetical  be- 
liever. Theology  somehow  did  not  lie  in  his  way ;  and 
he  was  (as  I  conceive)  sincere,  rather  than  earnest,  in 
religion.  There  lay  his  great  defect ;  since  all  are  but 
fragments  after  all  that  can  be  said  even  of  a  Shake- 
speare. He  wanted  intensity  of  character,  depth  of  soul, 
spirituality ;  and  it  is  curious  in  a  man  so  large. 

"  And  in  connection  with  this  lay  one  of  the  secrets  of 
Forbes's  boundless  popularity.  He  was  a  conformist, — 
ran  against  no  man  or  thing.  He  joined  no  new  cause, 
he  assailed  no  old  one ;  nay,  he  even  assailed  no  new 
pne.  All  were  welcome  to  him,  therefore,  and  he  to  all. 
Even  in  Natural  History  he  brought  no  agitating  or 
perplexing  news,  —  perplexing  men  with  the  fear  of 
change.  He  sailed  nobly  with  the  wind  and  tide  of  or- 
dinary progress,  not  needing  to  carry  a  single  gun,  but 
the  foremost  of  this  peaceful  fleet.  This  was  all  very 


248  EDWARD  FORBES. 

delightful  and  wise ;  yet  let  a  word  be  said  for  the  men 
of  war,  John  Kepler  and  the  rest ;  and  also  let  a  dis- 
tinction betwixt  the  two  orders  of  men  be  remembered. 
To  forget  such  distinctions  is  to  confound  the  morality  of 
criticism.  He  of  Nazareth,  not  to  be  profane,  brought 
'not  peace,  but  a  sword/  —  the  Divine  image  of  'the 
greater  sort  of  greatness.'  " 

This  is  to  the  life,  delicate  and  keen,  like  a  Holbein 
or  Van  Eyck.  The  description  of  his  person  is  curiously 
accurate,  —  the  fine  round  head,  the  long  face,  the  long, 
dim-brown  hair  like  a  woman's,  etc. 

To  conclude,  there  is  material  in  this  volume  for  a 
short  and  compact  life  of  Forbes.  You  feel  you  know 
him  and  hear  him ;  see  him  singing,  or  rather  crooning, 
his  odd  genial  songs  ;  playing  with  his  subject,  with 
everything,  making  his  pen  laugh  out  of  those  droll  tail- 
pieces and  overflowings  of  fun  ;  clever,  but  vague,  fee- 
ble in  outline,  but  full  of  the  man.  We  have  had  a 
melancholy  pleasure  in  giving  ourselves  up  to  this  book, 
and  thinking  how  much  the  world  has  gained  in  him, 
and  lost. 

The  differences  between  natural  history  and  analyt- 
ical science  are  sufficiently  distinct  where  they  are  far- 
thest from  each  other ;  but,  as  is  the  case  in  all  partitions 
of  knowledge,  they  get  less  marked  where  they  approach 
at  the  "  marches."  Therefore  it  is  hardly  fair  to  say 
that  Edward  Forbes  was  merely  a  master  in  natural 
history,  not  also  in  science  proper,  the  truth  rather  be- 
ing that  he  was  more  of  the  first  than  of  the  second. 
The  difference  of  the  two  knowledges  is  very  much  the 
difference  between  listening  to  what  nature  sponta- 
neously says  to  you.  —  that  philosophy,  which,  as  Bacon 
has  it,  "  repeats  the  words  of  the  universe  itself  with 


EDWARD   FORBES.  249 

the  utmost  fidelity,  and  is  written,  as  it  were,  by  dic- 
tation of  the  universe,"  and  between  putting  questions 
to  her,  often  very  cross-questions ;  putting  her,  in  fact, 
to  the  torture,  and  getting  at  her  hidden  things.  The 
one  is  more  of  the  nature  of  experience,  of  that  which 
is  a  methodized  record  of  appearances  ;  the  other  more 
of  experiment  of  that  which  you,  upon  some  hypoth- 
esis, expect  to  find,  and  has  more  to  do  with  intimate 
composition  and  action.  Still  this  parallelism  must  not 
be  run  out  of  breath  ;  both  of  them  have  chiefly  to  do 
with  the  truth  of  fact,  more  than  with  the  truth  of 
thought  about  fact,  or  about  itself,  which  is  philosophy, 
or  with  the  truth  of  imagination,  which  is  ideal  art,  fab- 
ricated by  the  shaping  spirit  from  fact,  and  serving  for 
delectation.  The  world  is  doing  such  a  large  business 
in  the  first  two  of  these  departments,  —  natural  history 
and  pure  science,  —  that  we  are  somewhat  in  danger 
of  forgetting  altogether  the  third,  which  is  of  them  all 
the  greatest,  and  of  misplacing  and  misinterpreting  the 
fourth. 

Science  is  ultimately  most  useful  when  it  goes  down 
into  practice  —  becomes  technical,  and  is  utilized ;  or 
blossoms  into  beauty,  or  ascends  into  philosophy  and 
religion,  and  rests  in  that  which  is  in  the  highest  sense 
good,  spiritual,  and  divine,  leaving  the  world  wiser  and 
happier,  as  well  as  more  powerful  and  knowing,  than  it 
found  it. 

We  end  by  quoting  from  this  memoir  the  following 
noble  passage,  by  that  master  of  science  and  of  style, 
our  own  Playfair,  in  his  account  of  Dr.  Hutton.  It  is 
singularly  appropriate. 

"  The  loss  sustained  by  the  death  of  this  great  natu- 
ralist was  aggravated  to  those  who  knew  him  by  the  con* 


250  EDWARD  FORBES. 

sideration  of  how  much  of  his  knowledge  had  perished 
with  himself,  and  notwithstanding  all  that  he  had  writ 
ten,  how  much  of  the  light  collected  by  a  life  of  expe 
rience  and  observation  was  now  completely  extinguished. 
It  is,  indeed,  melancholy  to  reflect,  that  with  all  who 
make  proficiency  in  the  sciences,  founded  on  nice  and 
delicate  observations,  something  of  this  sort  must  inva- 
riably happen.  The  experienced  eye,  the  power  of 
perceiving  minute  differences  and  fine  analogies  which 
discriminate  or  unite  the  objects  of  science,  and  the 
readiness  of  comparing  new  phenomena  with  others 
already  treasured  up  in  the  mind,  —  these  are  accom- 
plishments which  no  rules  can  teach,  and  no  precepts 
can  put  us  in  possession  of.  This  is  a  portion  of  knowl- 
edge which  every  man  must  acquire  for  himself ;  nobody 
can  leave  as  an  inheritance  to  his  successor.  It  seems, 
indeed,  as  if  Nature  had,  in  this  instance,  admitted  an 
exception  to  the  will  by  which  she  has  ordained  the 
perpetual  accumulation  of  knowledge  among  civilized 
men,  and  had  destined  a  considerable  portion  of  science 
eontinually  to  grow  up,  and  perish  with  individuals." 


DR.  ADAMS   OF  BANOHORT. 


SCENE. — A  hut  in  the  wilds  ofBraemar;  a  big  gamekeeper  fast 
sinking  from  a  gunshot  wound  in  the  lower  part  of  the  thigh. 

DR.  ADAMS,  loquitur.  —  "Get  a  handkerchief,  and  the  spurtle" 
(the  porridge  stick),  "and  now  for  a  pad  for  our  tourniquet.  This 
will  do,"  putting  his  little  Elzevir  Horace  down  upon  the  femoral. 
Gamekeeper's  life  saved,  and,  by  good  guidance,  the  leg  too. 


DR.  ADAMS  OF  BANCHORY. 

E  little  thought  when,  a  few  weeks  ago,  we  in- 
troduced some  suggestions  from  Dr.  Adams 
as  to  the  propriety  of  instituting  in  our  uni- 
versities a  chair  of  medical  history,  by  calling  him  the 
most  learned  of  Scottish  physicians,  that  we  should  soon 
have  to  change  "  is  "  into  was. 

When  we  last  saw  him,  though  he  looked  older  than 
his  years,  and  weather-worn,  he  was  full  of  vigor  and  of 
heart,  and  seemed  to  have  in  him  many  days  of  victo- 
rious study. 

To  see  so  much  energy  and  understanding  cut  sheer 
through  in  its  full  current,  not  dwindling  away  by  nat- 
ural waste,  is  little  less  startling  than  it  would  be  to  see 
his  own  silver  and  impetuous  Dee,  one  moment  rolling 
in  ample  volume,  and  the  next  vanished.  For,  common 
though  it  be,  there  is  nothing  more  strange,  nothing,  in 
a  certain  true  sense,  more  against  nature,  than  the  sud- 
den extinguishment  of  so  much  intellect,  knowledge,  and 
force. 

Dr.  Adams  was  not  a  mere  scholar,  not  merely  pa- 
tient, ingenious,  and  perspicacious  in  the  study  of  lan- 
guage. His  was  likewise  a  robust,  hardy,  eager  nature, 
hungering  after  knowledge  of  every  sort,  and,  in  the 
structure  of  his  mind  and  its  bent,  more  like  the  Scali- 
gers  and  Bentleys  of  old  than  the  mighty  but  mere 
word-mongers  among  the  Germans.  He  was  made  of 


254  DR.   ADAMS   OF  BANCHORY. 

the  same  tough  and  fervid  material  as  were  George  Bu- 
chanan and  Florence  Wilson,  Andrew  Melville,  and 
the  huge, -turbulent,1  and  intrepid  Dempster,  men  who 
were  great  scholars,  and  a  great  deal  more;  shrewd, 
and  full  of  public  spirit;  men  of  affairs  as  well  as  of 
letters. 

It  is  this  intermixture  of  shrewdness  and  fervor  with 
hard-headeduess  and  patient  endurance  of  mental  toil,  so 
peculiarly  Scotch  in  its  quality  and  in  its  flavor,  which 
makes  a  man  like  the  country  surgeon  of  Banchory- 
Ternan  worthy  of  more  than  a  passing  notice. 

Francis  Adams  was  born  in  the  parish  of  Lumphanan, 
on  Deeside.  His  father  was  a  gardener,  and  his  elder 
brother  is  still  a  farmer  in  that  parish. 

In  a  memorandum  of  his  literary  life  now  before  us,  he 
says :  —  "As  far  as  I  can  think,  my  classical  bent  was 
owing  to  a  friendship  which  I  formed,  when  about  fifteen 
years  old,  with  a  young  man  a  few  years  older  than  my- 
self, who  had  enjoyed  the  benefits  of  an  excellent  edu- 
cation at  Montrose,  which  gave  him  a  superiority  over 
myself  that  roused  me  to  emulation. 

"  In  my  early  years  I  had  been  shamefully  mistaught. 
I  began  by  devoting  seventeen  hours  a  day  to  the  study 
of  Virgil  and  Horace,  and  it  will  be  readily  believed 
that  such  intense  application  soon  made  up  for  any  early 
deficiencies. 

"  I  read  each  of  these  six  or  seven  times  in  succession. 

1  Here  is  this  formidable  worthy's  portrait,  by  Matthaeus  Peregrinus, 
as  quoted  by  Dr.  Irving  in  his  Literary  Scotchmen  of  the  Last  Four 
Centuries:  —  "Moribus  ferox  fuit,  apertus  omniuo,  et  simulandi  nes- 
cius,  sive  enim  amore,  sive  odio  aliquein  prosequeretur  utrumque  pa- 
lam;  consuetudine  jucundissimus,  amicis  obsequentissimus,  ita  inimicij 
maxime  infensus,  acceptaeque  injurise  tenax,  earn  aperte  agiioscens  et 
repetens." 


DR.   ADAMS   OF   BANCHOBY.  255 

Having  mastered  the  difficulties  of  Latin  literature,  I 
naturally  turned  my  attention  to  Greek,  as  being  the 
prototype  of  the  other. 

"  It  was  the  late  Dr.  Kerr,  of  Aberdeen,  who  drew 
my  attention  to  the  Greek  literature  of  medicine,  and  at 
his  death  I  purchased  a  pretty  fair  collection  of  the 
Greek  medical  authors  which .  he  had  made.  However, 
I  have  also  read  almost  every  Greek  work  which  has 
come  down  to  us  from  antiquity,  with  the  exception  of 
the  ecclesiastical  writers  ;  all  the  poets,  historians,  phi- 
losophers, orators,  writers  of  science,  novelists,  and  so 
forth.  My  ambition  always  was  to  combine  extensive 
knowledge  of  my  profession  with  extensive  erudition." 

This  was  no  ordinary  boy  of  fifteen  who  could,  ex 
propria  motu,  work  seventeen  hours  a  day  to  make  up 
to  his  friend. 

He  settled  early  in  life  in  the  beautiful  and  secluded 
village  of  Bauchory-Ternan,  to  use  his  own  words, 
"with  its  glassy  river  and  magnificent  hills  rising  in 
front  and  behind  like  another  Tempe,  with  its  Peueus 
flowing  between  Ossa  and  Olympus."  Here  he  spent 
his  days  in  the  arduous  and  useful  profession  of  a  coun- 
try surgeon,  out  in  all  weathers  and  at  all  hours,  having 
the  lives,  the  births,  and  the  deaths  of  a  wild  outlying 
region  on  his  hands.  This  work  he  did  so  thoroughly 
that  no  one  could,  with  a  shadow  of  justice,  say  that  his 
learning  lessened  his  readiness  and  his  ability  for  the 
active  duties  of  his  calling,  in  the  full  round  of  its  re- 
quirements. He  was  an  attentive,  resolute,  wise  practi- 
tioner, just  such  a  man  as  we  would  like  to  fall  into  the 
hands  of,  were  we  needing  his  help.  He  was  always  up 
to  the  newest  knowledge  of  the  time,  but  never  a  slave 
to  any  system,  or  addicted  to  swear  by  any  master.  The 


256  DR.   ADAMS   OF   BANCHORY.- 

whole  cast  of  his  mind  was  thoroughly  free  and  seli- 
sustained.  If  he  had  any  idols,  they  were  among  the 
mighty  and  the  dead ;  but  even  they  were  his  compan- 
ions and  familiar  daimons,  rather  than  his  gods.  The 
following  is  a  list  of  Dr.  Adams's  principal  publications, 
and  if  we  consider  that,  during  all  this  time,  he  was 
fighting  for  a  livelihood,  educating  his  family,  and  in- 
volved in  his  multifarious  and  urgent  duties,  they  fur- 
nish one  of  the  most  signal  instances  of  the  pursuit 
and  mastery  of  knowledge  under  difficulties  to  be  found 
even  among  our  Scottish  worthies :  — 

1.  Translation  of  Hero  and  Leander,  from  the  Greek 
of  Musaeus,  with  other  Poems,  English  and  Latin.   Aber- 
deen, 1826. 

2.  Hermes  Philologus,  or  the  Connection  of  the  Greek 
and  Latin.    London,  1826.     This  made  him  many  liter- 
ary friends,  among  others,  Edmund  H.  Barker,  author 
of  Dr.  Parr's  Life,  and  Dr.  Anthon  of  New  York. 

3.  Various   Papers  of   Greek    Prosody,  etc.,  in  the 
Classical  Journal. 

4.  On  the  Administration  of  Hellebore  among   the 
Ancients. 

5.  On  the  Nervous  System  of  Galen  and  other  An- 
cient Authors,   1829,  in  which  the  originality  of  Sir 
Charles  Bell's  doctrines  was  attacked. 

6.  On  the  Toxicological  Doctrines  of  the  Ancients. 

7.  On  the  Treatment  of  Malignant  Ulcers  of  the  Face. 

8.  Notices    of    Greek,    Latin,   and   Arabic    Medical 
Authors.     For  Barker's  Edition  of  Lempriere. 

9.  Paulus  ^Egineta.     Translation  of  the  first  volume, 
1834.     This  was  a  losing  concern  as  to  money ;  but  it 
placed  him,  per  saltum,  in  the  first  rank  of  learned  and 
judicious  physicians ;    it  was  an  amazing  tour  de  force 


DR.   ADAMS   OF   BANCHORY.  257 

for  an  Aberdeen  surgeon,  and  will  ever  remain  a  memo- 
rial of  bis  indomitable  mental  pluck  and  strong  sense. 
The  Sydenham  Society  gave  its  character  as  follows  :  — 
"  Replete  with  learning,  and  comprising  the  most  com- 
plete view  which  has  ever  been  given  of  the  knowledge 
professed  by  the  Greeks,  Romans,  and  Arabians,  it  will 
form  a  lasting  monument  of  the  industry  and  erudition 
of  its  author,  and  an  honor  to  his  country." 

10.  Several  Reviews  in  Forbes's  British  and  Foreign 
Review,  1842-66. 

11.  Case  of  Dislocation  of  the  Knee-joint,  with  Dis- 
section. 

12.  English  and  Greek  Dictionary  (Dunbar's),  almost 
entirely  done  by  him.     The  appendix,  containing  scien- 
tific explanation  of  the  Greek  names  of  minerals,  plants, 
and  animals,  is  out  of  sight  the  most  valuable  existing  in 
any  language. 

13.  Paulus  ^Egineta,  translated  from  the  Greek.     3 
vols.,  1845-6-7.     Sydenham  Society. 

14.  A  Series  of  Papers  on  Uterine  Haemorrhage. 

15.  Case  of  a  Woman  bitten  by  an  Adder. 

16.  A  Series  of  Papers  on  the  Construction  of  the 
Placenta. 

17.  On  the  Treatment  of  Burns. 

18.  Hippocrates,  translated  from  the  Original.  2  vols., 
1849.     Sydenham  Society. 

19.  Theophilus  de  Fabrica.     Assisted  by  Dr.  Green- 
hill.     Oxon.     1842. 

20.  Arundines  Devae:  a  Collection  of  Original  Po- 
ems. 

Since  that  time  there  have  been  frequent  communica- 
tions by  him  to  the  journals  on  medical  subjects,  and  a 
17 


258  DR.   ADAMS   OF  BANCHORY. 

pleasant  paper  on  the  study  of  ornithology,  read  before 
the  British  Association  at  Aberdeen. 

Nothing  can  better  illustrate  his  keen  appetite  for 
knowledge  of  all  sorts  than  this  curious  and  touching 
record  of  his  own  observations  on  the  birds  of  Banchory, 
and  his  son's  on  those  of  Cashmere.  You  see  what  a 
quick  and  loving  eye  the  father  had  kept,  during  his 
busy  and  learned  life,  upon  the  natural  objects  he  met 
with  in  his  rides,  and  the  training  he  had  given  his  son 
in  such  studies  at  home,  which  enabled  him  to  turn  his 
Indian  observations  to  good  account.  This  modest  but 
remarkable  paper  contains  not  only  the  ornithological 
notes,  but  an  admirable  pleading  for  this  department  of 
natural  history  as  a  branch  of  liberal  education,  and  a 
valuable  gymnastic  for  the  senses  and  the  mind,  and 
ends  with  an  eloquent,  and  we  think  well-founded  pro- 
test, against  the  scientific  ultraism  of  the  day,  the  useful 
information,  and  cramming  mania.  We  wish  we  had 
space  to  give  some-  of  his  words  of  admonition  and 
warning.  The  following  are  Dr.  Adams's  remarks,  in 
the  memorandum  already  referred  to,  on  his  two  great 
works :  — 

"  I  began  the  translation  of  ^Egineta  in  the  end  of 
Nov.  1827,  and  finished  it  on  28th  April  1829.  I  never, 
at  any  period  of  my  life,  underwent  so  much  drudgery  ; 
and  during  three  months  I  sat  up  late  and  rose  early, 
and  snatched  every  minute  I  could  from  the  duties  of 
my  profession.  At  that  time  my  practice,  though  not 
lucrative,  was  extensive,  especially  in  the  obstetric  line ; 
I  managed,  however,  to  work  at  my  translation  ten 
hours  a  day.  I  finished  the  translation  of  Hippocrates 
in  about  four  months.  The  certainty  of  attaining  a  fair 
remuneration  for  the  trouble  it  cost  me,  and  that  it 


DR.   ADAMS   OP  BANCHORY.  259 

would  not  be  a  light  hid  under  a  bushel,  made  this  by 
far  the  most  delightful  task  I  ever  engaged  in.  The  re- 
ception of  it  was  everything  I  could  desire.  It  cost  me 
some  professional  sacrifices,  but  this  was  amply  made  up 
by  the  delight  and  mental  improvement  it  conferred 
on  me." 

Such  is  a  hasty  and  imperfect  sketch  of  the  character 
and  works  of  the  remarkable  man,  who  well  deserved 
the  title  of  doctissimus  medicorum  Britannorum. 

Some  years  ago,  when  travelling  through  that  noble 
and  beautiful  region,  we  went  across  from  the  inn  at 
Banchory  to  introduce  ourselves  to  the  translator  of  the 
divine  old  man  of  Cos.  We  found  him  at  breakfast, 
ready  for  his  ride  up  the  Feugh,  and  amusing  himself 
with  pencilling  down  a  translation  of  an  ode  of  Horace 
into  Greek  verse ! 

He  was  a  thorough  Aberdonian,  hard-headed  and 
warm-hearted,  canny  and  yet  independent,  a  man  of 
thought  and  action,  not  less  than  a  man  of  vocables 
and  learning ;  in  politics  an  old  and  thorough  Liberal ; 
generous  in  his  praise  of  others,  and  not  unamusingly 
fond  of  their  praise  of  himself.  By  the  sheer  force  of 
his  intellect,  by  the  extent  and  exactness  of  his  erudi- 
tion, he  became  the  cherished  friend  of  such  men  as  Sir 
John  Forbes,  Dean  Milman,  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  and 
many  of  the  famous  Continental  scholars  ;  and  he  leaves 
in  his  own  profession  no  equal  in  the  combination  of 
honest,  deep,  and  broad  learning,  with  practical  sagacity 
and  enlightened  experience. 


EXCURSUS  ETHICUS. 


Venus  cogitatur  Deus  quam  didtur,  et  verius  est  quam  cogitatur.  — 
AUGUSTINE. 

In  these  two  things,  viz.,  an  equal  indifferency  for  all  truth  —  1 
mean  the  receiving  it  in  the  love  of  it  as  truth,  but  not  loving  it  for  any 
other  reason  before  we  know  it  to  be  true  ;  and  in  the  examination  of 
our  principles,  and  not  receiving  any  for  such,  nor  building  on  them, 
until  we  are  fully  convinced,  as  rational  creatures,  of  their  solidity, 
truth,  and  certainty  —  consists  that  freedom  of  the  understanding 
which  is  necessary  to  a  rational  creature,  and  without  which  it  is  not 
truly  an  understanding.  —  JOHN  LOCKE. 


EXCURSUS  ETHICUS. 

E  have  named  the  excellent  works  at  the  close 
of  this  paper  more  with  a  view  of  recommend- 
ing them  to  the  study  of  such  of  our  readers  as 
may  be  so  inclined,  than  of  reviewing  them  in  the  tech- 
nical sense,  still  less  of  going  over  exactly  the  same 
ground  which  they  have  already  so  well  occupied  and 
enriched.  Our  object  in  selecting  their  names  out  of 
many  others  is,  that  they  are  good  and  varied,  both  as  to 
time,  and  view,  and  character,  —  and  also  that  we  may 
be  saved  referring  to  them  more  particularly. 

Our  observations  shall  be  of  a  very  miscellaneous  and 
occasional  kind  —  perhaps  too  much  so  for  the  taste  or 
judgment  of  our  readers  ;  but  we  think  that  a  rambling 
excursion  is  a  good  and  wholesome  thing  now  and  then. 

System  is  good,  but  it  is  apt  to  enslave  and  confine  its 
maker.  Method  in  art  is  what  system  is  in  science ;  and 
we  physicians  know,  to  our  sad  and  weighty  experience, 
that  we  are  more  occupied  with  doing  some  one  thing, 
than  in  knowing  many  other  things.  System  is  to  an 
art  what  an  external  skeleton  is  to  a  crab,  something 
it,  as  well  as  the  crab,  must  escape  from  if  it  mean  to 
grow  bigger  :  more  of  a  shield  and  covering  than  a  sup- 
port and  instrument  of  power.  Our  skeletons  are  inside 
our  bodies ;  and  so  generally  ought  our  systems  to  be 
inside,  not  outside,  our  minds. 

Were  we,  for  our  own  and  our  readers'  satisfaction 


264  EXCURSUS   ETHICUS. 

and  entertainment,  or  for  some  higher  and  better  end, 
about  to  go  through  a  course  of  reading  on  the  founda- 
tion of  general  morals,  in  order  to  deduce  from  them  a 
code  of  professional  ethics ;  to  set  ourselves  to  discover 
the  root,  and  ascend  up  from  it  to  the  timber,  the  leaves, 
the  fruit,  and  the  flowers,  we  would  not  confine  ourselves 
to  a  stinted  browsing  in  the  ample  and  ancient  field  :  we 
would,  in  right  of  our  construction,  be  omnivorous, 
trusting  to  a  stout  mastication,  a  strong  digestion,  an  ec- 
lectic and  vigorous  chylopoietic  staff  of  appropriators 
and  scavengers,  to  our  making  something  of  everything. 
We  would  not  despise  good  old  Plutarch's  morals,  or 
anybody  else's,  because  we  know  chemistry  and  many 
other  things  better  than  he  did;  nor  would  we  be 
ashamed  to  confess  that  our  best  morality,  and  our 
deepest  philosophy  of  the  nature  and  origin  of  human 
duty,  of  moral  good  and  evil,  was  summed  up  in  the 
golden  rules  of  childhood,  "  Love  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
self ;  "  "  Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  unto 
you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them ; "  "  Every  man  is  thy 
neighbor  ;  "  "  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law  ;  "  "  Ye 
owe  no  man  anything  but  to  love  one  another."  This 
is  the  true  birthplace  of  the  word  ought,  that  which 
we  owe  to  some  one,  and  of  duty,  that  which  is  due  by 
us ;  and  likewise  of  moral,  that  which  should  be  cus- 
tomary, and  ethical,  in  the  same  sense  ;  —  the  only  cus- 
tom which  it  will  always  be  a  privilege,  as  well  as  a 
duty,  to  pay  —  the  only  debt  which  must  always  be  run- 
ning up. 

It  is  worth  remembering  that  names  too  often  become 
the  ghosts  of  things,  and  ghosts  with  a  devil  or  a  fool, 
instead  of  the  original  tenant  inside.  The  word  manners 
means  literally  nothing  else,  and  ought  never  to  be  any. 


EXCURSUS   ETHICUS.  265 

thing  else  than  the  expression,  the  embodiment,  the 
pleasant  flower,  of  an  inward  mos,  or  moral  state.  We 
may  all  remember  that  the  Contes  Moraux,  of  Mar- 
montel,  which  were,  many  of  them,  anything  but  moral, 
were  translated  so,  instead  of  Tales  illustrative  of  Man- 
ners. 

To  go  on  with  our  excursus  erraticus. 

Were  we  going  to  take  ourselves  and  our  company 
into  the  past,  and  visit  the  habitats  of  the  great  moral- 
ists, and  see  the  country,  and  make  up  our  minds  as  to 
what  in  it  was  what,  and  how  much  to  us  it  was  worth, 
we  would  not  keep  to  one  line ;  we  would  expatiate  a 
little,  and  make  it  a  ramble,  not  a  journey,  much  less  an 
express  train  with  no  stoppages.  We  would,  moreover, 
take  our  own  time,  choose  our  own  roads  and  our  own 
vehicles ;  we  would  stay  where  and  as  long  as  we  found 
entertainment,  good  lodging,  and  good  fare,  and  did  not 
lose  our  time  or  ourselves :  and  we  would  come  home, 
we  hope,  not  informed  merely,  but  in  better  health  and 
spirits,  more  contented,  more  active,  more  enlightened, 
more  readv  for  our  dailv  work.  We  would  be<nn  at  the 

•/  ••  O 

beginning,  and  start  early.  In  search  of  what  is  man's 
normal  sense  of  duty,  and  how  he  is  to  do  it,  we  would 
take  our  company  to  that  garden  planted  eastward  in 
Eden,  where  were  all  manner  of  fruits,  pleasant  to  the 
eye  and  good  for  food ;  that  garden  which  every  one 
believes  in  —  we  don't  mean  geographically  or  geolog- 
ically, but  really  —  as  a  fact  in  the  history  of  the  race, 
and  relics  of  which  —  its  sounds,  its  fragrance,  and 
beauty  —  he  meets  still  everywhere,  within  him  and 
around  him,  u  like  the  remembrance  of  things  to  come," 
—  we  would  there  find  the  law,  the  primal  condition  un- 
der which  the  species  were  placed  by  its  Maker ;  how 


266  EXCURSUS  ETHICUS. 

the  infinite  and  the  finite,  God  and  his  children,  giving 
and  receiving  faith  and  works,  met  together  and  kept  in 
tune:  how  and  by  whom  man  was  made  upright,  iu  mind 
as  well  as  body  ;  and  what  was  that  first  of  the  many 
inventions  he  found  out,  when  he  took  of  the  tree  of 
the  knowledge  of  good  as  well  as  of  evil,  and  did  eat. 

Then  we  would  move  on  to  a  wild  mountain  in  Ara- 
oia,  standing  at  this  day  as  it  did  on  that,  and  joining 
the  multitude  of  that  peculiar  people,  whom  we  still  see 
in  the  midst  of  us  in  our  busy  world,  unchanged,  the 
breed  still  unmixed,  and  out  of  the  bickering  flame,  the 
darkness,  and  the  splendor,  and,  "  as  it  were  the  very 
body  of  heaven  in  its  clearness,"  the  sight  so  exceed- 
ingly terrible,  we  might  hear  those  ten  commandments 
which  all  of  us  have  by  heart,  —  not  all  iu  our  hearts. 
Lest  we  should  fail  with  fear,  we  would  go  on  into  the 
sunlight  of  Canaan,  and  forward  many  centuries,  and  in 
the  "Sermon  on  the  Mount,"  sitting  down  among  the 
multitudes,  hear  our  code  of  laws  revised  and  re-issued 
by  their  Giver,  and  find  its  summary  easily  carried  away, 
—  love  to  God,  love  to  man,  loving  our  neighbor  as  our- 
selves. 

Then  might  we  go  back  and  visit  the  Shepherd  King, 
and  carry  off  his  104th,  105th,  and  119th  Psalms,  and 
being  there  we  would  take  a  lesson  in  morals  from  his 
son's  life,  —  that  wisest  and  foolishest  of  men,  —  and 
carry  off  with  us  his  pithy  "  Proverbs." 

Next  we  would  intercept  Paul's  letter  to  his  friends 
at  Rome,  and  make  an  extract  of  its  1st  chapter,  and 
its  12th  and  13th,  and  end  by  copying  it  all ;  and  having 
called  on  James  the  Less  and  the  Just,  we  would  get  his 
entire  epistle  by  heart,  and  shut  up  this,  our  visit  to  the 
Holy  Land,  with  the  sound  of  the  last  verse  of  the 


EXCURSUS  ETHICUS.  267 

jecond  last  chapter  of  the  Apocalypse  ringing  in  our 
ears. 

"We  would  then  find  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle, 
and  all  those  noble  old  fellows,  busy  at  their  work,  show- 
ing us  how  little  and  how  much  man,  with  the  finest  or- 
ganization, and  the  best  discipline,  can  do  for  himself  in 
the  way  of  lifting  himself  from  the  ground,  and  erecting 
himself  above  himself,  by  his  sheer  strength;  and  we 
would  not  fail  to  admire  the  courage,  and  the  deep  moral 
intensity  and  desire,  the  amazing  beauty  and  energy  of 
expression,  the  amplitude  and  depth  of  their  ideas,  as  if 
minds  were  once  giant  as  well  as  bodies.  But  we  would 
not  tarry  with  them,  we  would  wish  rather  to  take  them 
with  us,  and  get  Socrates  to  study  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  and  Plato  the  Pauline  Epistles,  where  he  would 
meet  his  fellow,  and  more  than  his  match,  in  subtlety 
and  in  sense,  in  solid  living  thought,  in  clear  and  pas- 
sionate utterance,  in  everything  that  makes  thought  felt, 
and  feeling  understood,  and  both  motive  and  effectual. 

Then  would  we  hurry  over  the  dreary  interval  of  the 
middle  passage  of  the  dark  ages,  where  Aristotle's  blind 
children  of  the  mist  might  be  seen  spinning  ropes,  not 
out  of  themselves,  like  the  more  intelligent  and  practical 
spider,  but  out  of  the  weary  sand — ropes,  signifying 
nothing;  and  we  might  see  how,  having  parted  with 
their  senses,  they  had  lost  themselves,  and  were  vox  et 
prcetcrea  nihil. 

But  we  must  shorten  our  trip.  We  would  cool  our- 
selves, and  visit  old  Hobbes  of  Malmesbury  in  his  arctic 
cave,  and  see  him  sitting  like  a  polar  bear,  muttering 
protests  against  the  universe,  nursing  his  wrath  as  the 
only  thing  with  which  to  warm  and  cheer  that  sulleu 
heart,  and  proclaiming  that  self-love  is  every  kind  of 


268  EXCURSUS  ETHICUS. 

love,  and  all  that  in  man  is  good.  We  would  wonder  at 
that  palace  of  ice,  symmetrical,  beautiful,  strong  —  but 
below  zero.  We  would  come  away  before  we  were  be- 
numbed, admiring  much  his  intrepid  air,  his  keen  and 
clean  teeth,  his  clear  eye,  his  matchless  vigor  of  grip, 
his  redeeming  love  for  his  cubs,  his  dreary  mistake  of 
absolute  cold  for  heat,  —  frozen  mercury  burning  as  well 
as  molten  gold.  Leaving  him,  after  trying  to  get  him 
to  give  up  his  cold  fishy  diet,  his  long  winters  of  splen- 
did darkness,  and  come  and  live  with  us  like  a  Christian, 
we  would  go  to  an  English  country-house,  to  Lady 
Masham's,  at  the  Gates,  the  abode  of  comfort,  cheerful- 
ness, and  thoughtful  virtue ;  and  we  would  there  find 
John  Locke,  "  communing  with  the  man  within  the 
breast,"  and  listening  reverently,  but  like  a  man ;  and 
we  would  carry  off  from  her  ladyship's  table  her  father's 
(Cudworth)  huge  magazine  of  learning,  strong  intellect, 
and  lofty  morality  —  his  treatise  "  Concerning  Eternal 
and  Immutable  Morality."  Then  we  might  call  for 
Locke's  pupil,  Lord  Shaftesbury,  the  great  man  and  the 
courtier,  but  the  philosopher,  too,  having  glimpses  of 
better  things,  and  coming  very  close  to  what  we  are  in 
search  of  —  a  special  moral  faculty  ;  and  we  would  find 
our  friend  Dr.  Henry  More  in  his  laboratory,  dreaming 
in  his  odd  Platonic  way,  of  a  "  boniform  faculty." 

Next,  we  would  set  sail  across  the  Atlantic,  and  reach 
in  the  evening  the  mild  skies  of  the  "  vex't  Bermoothes," 
and  there  find  the  beautiful-souled  Berkeley  dreaming 
of  ideal  universities  in  the  far  west  —  of  a  new  world, 
peopled  with  myriads  as  happy,  as  intelligent,  as  virtu- 
ous as  himself;  dreaming,  too,  of  his  pancratic  "  Tar 
Water,"  and  in  "  Siris "  ascending  from  his  innocent 
nostrum,  by  a  Jacob's  ladder  of  easy  grade,  to  Plato's 


EXCURSUS  ETHICUS.  269 

heaven.  And  being  in  the  neighborhood,  we  might  as 
well  visit  New  England,  and  among  its  hedgerows  and 
elms,  and  quiet  old  villages,  forget  we  are  in  New 
Hampshire — not  in  old — and  see  in  his  study  a  coun- 
try clergyman,  with  a  thoughtful,  contented  look,  and 
an  eye  rich  with  a  grave  enthusiasm  —  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards —  "  whose  power  of  subtle  argument,  perhaps  un- 
matched, certainly  unsurpassed  among  men,  was  joined 
with  a  personal  character  which  raised  his  piety  to 
fervor."  We  might  watch  him  with  his  back  to  the 
wall  of  his  room,  his  right  heel  turning  diligently  in  a 
hole  of  its  own  making  in  the  floor,  and  the  whole  man 
absorbed  in  thought;1  and  we  would  bring  off  what  he 
thought  of  the  "  Nature  of  True  Virtue,  and  God's  chief 
end  in  the  Creation ;  "  and  we  would  find  that,  by  a 
mental  process  as  steady  as  that  of  the  heel  —  by  his 
intrepid  excogitation,  his  downright  simplicity  of  pur- 
pose, and  the  keen  temper  of  his  instrument,  he  had,  to 
borrow  an  exquisite  illustration,  pierced  through  the 
subsoil  —  the  gravel,  the  clay,  and  rocks  —  down  to  the 
fresh  depths  of  our  common  nature,  and  brought  up,  as 
from  an  Artesian  well,  his  rich  reward  and  ours,  in  the 
full  flow  of  the  waters  of  virtue  —  not  raised,  per  saltum, 
by  pump  or  high  pressure,  but  flowing,  pleno-rivo,  by  a 
force  from  within. 

On  our  return,  we  might  fall  in  with  an  ardent,  but 
sensible  Irishman,2  teaching  moral  philosophy  at  Glas- 
gow, and  hitting,  by  a  sort  of  felicity,  on  what  had  been 
before  so  often  missed,  and  satisfying  mankind,  at  least, 

1  Some  years  ago,  an  intelligent  New  England  physician  told  us  that 
lhis  was  the  great  metaphysician's  nabit  and  attitude  of  study,  and 
that  he  had  often  seen  the  hole,  which  the  molar  heel  made  during 
years  of  meditation. 

2  Hutcheson. 


270  EXCURSUS   ETHICUS. 

with  the  name  of  a  moral  sense  —  as  distinct  as  our 
sense  of  bitter  and  sweet,  soft  and  hard,  light  and  dark- 
ness. Then  might  we  take  a  turn  in  his  garden  with 
Bishop  Butler,  and  hear  his  wise  and  weighty,  his  simple 
and  measured  words :  "  Nations,  like  men,  go  at  times 
.deranged."  "  Everything  is  what  it  is,  and  not  another 
thing."  "  Goodness  is  a  fixed,  steady,  unmovable  prin- 
ciple of  action."  "  Reason,  with  self-love  and  conscience, 
are  the  chief  or  superior  principles  in  the  nature  of  man  ; 
and  they,  if  we  understand  our  true  happiness,  always 
lead  us  the  same  way."  "  Duty  and  interest  are  per- 
fectly coincident,  for  the  most  part,  in  this  world ;  and 
in  every  instance,  if  we  take  in  the  future  and  the 
whole."  We  would  carry  off  all  his  sermons,  and  indeed 
everything  he  had  written,  and  distribute  his  sermons  on 
The  Love  of  God,  on  Self-Deceit,  The  Love  of  our  Neigh- 
bor, and  The  Ignorance  of  Man,  all  along  our  road,  to 
small  and  great. 

We  would  look  in  on  the  author  of  the  History  of  the 
Ethical  Sciences,  on  his  return,  perhaps  tired  and  dis- 
pirited, from  a  speech  on  the  principles  of  natural  and 
immutable  law,  in  "  the  House,"  when  all  had  been 
asleep  but  himself  and  the  reporters  ;  and  we  would 
listen  for  hours  to  his  unfolding  the  meanings  which 
others,  and  which  he  himself,  attached  to  that  small 
word  —  ought ;  and  hear  him  call  it  "  this  most  impor- 
tant of  words  :  "  and  we  would  come  away  charmed  with 
the  mild  wisdom  of  his  thoughts,  and  the  sweet  richness 
of  his  words. 

We  would  merely  leave  our  cards  at  Jeremy  Ben- 
tham's,  that  despiser  of  humbug  in  others,  and  uncon- 
scious example  of  it  in  himself,  and  we  would  bring  off 
his  Deontological  Faculty.  Neither  would  we  care  to 


EXCURSUS  ETHICUS.  271 

stay  long  with  that  hard-headed,  uncomfortable  old  man 
of  Kccnigsberg, —  losing  himself,  from  excess  of  strict- 
ness, in  the  midst  of  his  metaphysics ;  and  we  would 
with  pity  and  wonder  hear  him  announce  that  dreadful 
"  categorical  imperative "  of  his,  which  has  been  said, 
with  equal  wit  and  truth,  to  be,  "  at  its  best,  but  a  dark 
lantern,  till  it  borrows  a  utilitarian  farthing  candle  — 
i  flaming  sword  that  turns  every  way  but  drives  no 
whither  "  —  proclaiming  a  paradise  lost,  but  in  no  wise 
pointing  the  way  to  a  paradise  to  be  regained. 

And  before  settling  at  home,  we  would  look  in  and 
pay  our  respects  in  our  own  town,  to  a  beneficent,  be- 
nevolent, enlightened,  and  upright  man,1  with  whom  we 
could  agree  to  differ  in  some  things,  and  rejoice  to  agree 
in  many ;  and  we  would  bring  away  from  him  all  that  he 
could  tell  us  of  that  "  conscientiousness  "  —  the  bodily 
organ  of  the  inward  sense  of  personal  right  and  wrong, 
upon  the  just  direction  of  which  —  no  one  knows  better 
than  he  does  —  depend  the  true  safety,  and  dignity,  and 
happiness  of  man. 

But  after  all  our  travel,  we  would  be  little  the  better 
or  the  wiser,  if  we  ourselves  did  not  inwardly  digest  and 
appropriate,  as  "upon  soul  and  conscience,"  all  our 
knowledge.  We  would  much  better  not  have  left  home. 
For  it  is  true,  that  not  the  light  from  heaven,  not  the 
riches  from  the  earth,  not  the  secrets  of  nature,  not  the 
minds  of  men,  or  of  ourselves,  can  do  us  anything  but 
evil,  if  our  senses,  our  inward  and  outward  senses,  are 
not  kept  constantly  exercised,  so  as  to  discern  for  our- 
selves what  is  good  and  evil  in  us  and  for  us.  We  must 
carry  the  lights  of  our  own  consciousness  and  conscience 
into  all  our  researches,  or  we  will,  in  all  likelihood, 
lose  our  pains. 

1  George  Combe. 


272  EXCURSUS   ETHICUS. 

As  we  have  been,  however,  on  our  travels,  qua  medici, 
as  well  as  general  tourists,  we  shall  give  the  names  of 
some  our  best  medical  moralists  :  —  The  Oath  and  Law 
of  Hippocrates,  and  above  all,  his  personal  character, 
and  the  whole  spirit  of  his  writings  and  practice  —  Stahl 
—  Sydenham's  warning  and  advice  to  those  who  pur- 
pose giving  themselves  to  the  work  of  medicine  —  the 
four  things  he  would  have  them  to  weigh  well,  —  the 
two  admirable  academic  sermons  of  Gaubius,  De  Regi- 
mine  Mentis  quod  Medicorum  est — Gregory  on  the  Dit- 
ties of  a  Physician  —  Dr.  Denman's  Life,  by  his  son, 
the  Lord  Chief- Justice,  and  Dr.  Gooch's  —  not  Dr. 
Hope's,  for  reasons  we  might,  but  do  not,  give  —  Dr. 
Baillie's  character,  personal  and  professional  —  Dr.  Ab- 
ercrombie's,  and  the  books  we  have  put  at  the  end  of 
this  paper. 

Dr.  Percival's  Ethics  is  a  classical  book,  in  its  best 
sense ;  sensible,  sound,  temperate,  clear  thoughts,  con- 
veyed in  natural,  clear,  persuasive  language.  Its  title  is 
somewhat  of  a  blunder,  at  first  it  was  Medical  Jurispru- 
dence —  and  Ethics  means  at  once  more  and  less  than 
what  it  is  made  by  him  to  represent.  The  Duties  of  a 
Physician  would  have  been  less  pedantic,  and  more  cor- 
rect and  homely.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  the  stiffness 
of  the  old  school  about  the  doctor ;  he  speaks  in  knee- 
breeches  and  buckles,  with  a  powdered  wig,  and  an  in- 
terminable silk  waistcoat,  a  gold-headed  cane  at  his  side, 
and  his  cocked  hat  under  his  arm.  To  us,  however,  this 
.is  a  great  charm  of  the  book,  and  of  such  books.  There 
may  be  stiffness  and  some  Johnsonian  swell  about  them ; 
some  words  bigger  than  the  thoughts,  like  a  boy  in  his 
father's  coat ;  some  sentences  in  which  the  meaning  ends 


EXCURSUS  ETHICUS.  273 

sooner  than  its  voice,  and  the  rummel  resounds  after 
having  parted  company  with  the  gumption  ;  but  with  all 
this,  there  is  a  temperance,  and  soundness,  and  dignity 
of  view  —  a  good  breeding  and  good  feeling,  a  reticence 
and  composure,  which,  in  this  somewhat  vaporing,  tur- 
bulent, unmannerly  age  of  ours,  is  a  refreshing  pleas- 
ure, though  too  often  one  of  memory. 

We  are  truly  glad  to  see,  from  a  modest  note  by  Dr. 
Greenhill,  the  editor,  that  he  is  engaged  on  a  work  on 
medical  morals.  He  will  do  it  well  and  wisely,  we  have 
no  doubt.  The  profession  is  deeply  indebted  to  him  for 
his  edition  of  Sydenham  —  the  best  monument  the  So- 
ciety called  by  his  name  could  raise  to  that  great  man  ; 
and  also  for  his  Life  of  Hippocrates,  in  Smith's  Diction- 
ary, besides  other  contributions  to  medical  philosophy 
and  biography. 

We  have  placed  Fuller's  Holy  and  Profane  State  on 
our  list,  specially  on  account  of  its  chapters  on  "  The 
Good  Physician,"  "  The  Life  of  Paracelsus,"  the  "  True 
Gentleman,"  and  the  "  Degenerous,"  — and  likewise  that 
we  might  tempt  our  readers  to  enjoy  the  whole  of  this 
delightful  little  book,  and  as  much  else  of  its  author  as 
they  can  get  hold  of.  They  will  thank  us  for  this,  if 
they  do  not  already  know  him,  —  and  they  will  excuse 
us,  if  they  do.  Dr.  Fuller  is  a  man  who,  like  Dr.  South 
and  Sydney  Smith,  is  so  intensely  witty,  that  we  forget, 
or  do  not  notice,  that  he  is  not  less  eminently  wise ;  and 
that  his  wit  is  the  laughing  blossom  of  wisdom.  Here 
are  some  of  his  sententiolce  vibrantes :  "  The  Good  Phy- 
sician hansels  not  his  new  experiments  on  the  bodies  of 
his  patients,  letting  loose  mad  recipes  into  the  sick  man's 
body,  to  try  how  they  and  nature  will  fight  it  out,  while 
he  stands  by  and  enjoys  the  battle,  —  except  in  desperate 
18 


274  EXCURSUS  ETHICUS. 

cases,  when  death  must  be  expelled  by  death.  Lest  his 
apothecary  should  oversee,  he  oversees  his  apothecary. 
He  trusteth  not  the  single  witness  of  the  water,  if  bet- 
ter testimony  may  be  had.  For  reasons  drawn  from  the 
urine  alone  are  as  brittle  as  the  urinal.  He  brings  not 
news,  with  a  false  spy,  that  the  coast  is  clear,  till  death 
surprises  the  sick  man.  I  know  physicians  love  to  make 
the  best  of  their  patient's  estate :  first,  say  they,  it  is 
improper  that  adjutores  vita  should  be  nuncii  mortis ; 
secondly,  none  with  their  goodwill  will  tell  bad  news ; 
thirdly,  their  fee  may  be  the  worse  for  it ;  fourthly,  it  is 
confessing  their  art  beaten  ;  fifthly,  it  will  poison  their 
patient's  heart  with  grief.  So  far  well ;  but  they  may  so 
order  it,  that  the  party  may  be  informed  wisely,  and  not 
outed  of  this  world  before  he  is  provided  for  another." 

We  give  the  last  sentence  of  his  Life  of  Paracelsus 
(Philippus  Aureolus  Theophrastus  Paracelsus  Bombast, 
ab  Hohenheim),  that  renowned  and  ill-understood  med- 
ley of  evil  and  good,  darkness  and  light,  quackery  and 
skill :  —  "In  a  word,  he  boasted  of  more  than  he  could 
do ;  did  more  cures  seemingly  than  really,  more  cures 
really  than  lawfully ;  of  more  parts  than  learning,  of 
more  fame  than  parts ;  a  better  physician  than  a  man,  a 
better  chirurgeon  than  physician." 

Here  are  the  chief  points  of  the  "  degenerous  gentle- 
man ; "  they  are  like  mottoes  to  the  chapters  on  the  physi- 
ology of  the  noble  rake  in  all  ages  :  —  "  He  goes  to  school 
to  learn  in  jest,  and  play  in  earnest.  His  brother's  serv- 
ing-men, which  he  counts  no  mean  preferment,  admit 
him  into  their  society ;  coming  to  the  university,  his 
study  is  to  study  nothing ;  at  the  inns  of  court,  pretend- 
ing to  learn  law,  he  learns  to  be  lawless,  and  grows  ac- 
quainted with  the  '  roaring  boys.'  Through  the  media 


EXCURSUS   ETHICUS.  275 

tion  of  a  scrivener,  he  is  introduced  to  some  great 
usurer,"  etc.,  etc. 

Sir  Thomas  Browne's  Religio  Medici,  though  full  of 
true  morality,  —  of  subtle  and  profound  thought,  and 
most  pathetic  touches,  —  as  well  as  of  his  own  peculiar, 
grave,  antique  humor,  and  quaint  expression  —  as  odd 
often  as  the  root  of  an  orchis,  and,  in  its  expression,  as 
richly  emblazoned  with  colors,  as  whimsically  gibbous  as 
its  flower  —  has  less  to  do  with  our  immediate  subject 
than  his  Christian  Morals,  which  are  well  worth  the 
perusing.  Here  is  a  sample  :  —  "  Live  up  to  the  dignity 
of  thy  nature  ;  pursue  virtue  virtuously :  desert  not  thy 
title  to  a  Divine  particle  —  have  a  glimpse  of  incompre- 
hensibles,  and  thoughts  of  things  that  thoughts  but  ten- 
derly touch.  Lodge  immaterials  in  thy  head,  ascend 
until  invisibles  fill  thy  spirit  with  spirituals,  with  the 
mysteries  of  faith,  the  mugnalities  of  religion,  and  thy 
life  with  the  honor  of  God." 

This  is  good  wholesome  advice  at  any  time,  and  not 
the  least  so  now,  when  sensible  things  are  cross-question- 
ing us  more  keenly  and  urgently  than  ever,  when  mat- 
ter is  disclosing  fresh  wonders,  every  day,  and  telling 
her  secrets  in  crowds  ;  and,  when  we  are  too  apt  to  be 
absorbed  in  her,  to  forget  that  there  is  something  else 
than  this  earth  —  that  there  is  more  than  meets  the  eye 
and  the  ear  —  that  seeing  is  not  believing,  and  that  it  is 
pleasant,  refreshing,  and  wholesome,  after  the  hurry  and 
heat  and  din  of  the  day,  its  flaring  lights  and  its  eager 
work,  to  cool  the  eye  and  the  mind,  and  rest  them  on 
the  silent  and  clear  darkness  of  night  — "  sowed  with 
itars  thick  as  a  field."  Let  us  keep  everything  worth 
keeping,  and  add,  not  substitute ;  do  not  let  us  lose  our- 
\plves  in  seeking  for  our  basic  radical,  or  our  primary 


276  EXCURSUS   ETHICUS. 

cell ;  let  us  remember  that  the  analytic  spirit  of  the  age 
may  kill  as  well  as  instruct,  may  do  harm  as  well  as  good  ; 
that  while  it  quickens  the  pulse,  strengthens  the  eye  and 
the  arm,  and  adds  cunning  to  the  fingers,  it  may,  if  car- 
ried to  excess,  confuse  the  vision,  stupefy  and  madden  the 
brain  ;  and,  instead  of  directing,  derange  and  destroy. 

We  have  no  book  in  our  language  to  compare  with 
Simon's  Deontologie  Medicale,  for  largeness  of  view  and 
earnestness  and  power  of  treatment;  it  is  admirable  in 
substance  and  in  form,  and  goes  through  the  whole  duty 
of  the  physician  with  great  intelligence,  liveliness,  and 
tact.  It  has  what  all  first-rate  French  writers  have  — 
the  charm  of  definite  ideas  and  definite  expression,  the 
"maniere  incisive"  which  we  so  much  want.  Had  we 
room,  we  would  gladly  have  quoted  his  remarks  on 
style  —  its  nature  and  its  value  to  the  physician  ;  he 
himself  exemplifies  what  he  teaches. 

On  this  subject,  we  would  direct  attention  likewise  to 
the  able  and  clever  article  in  the  British  and  Foreign 
Review.1  We  cannot  help  quoting  Buffon's  words  ;  they 
illustrate  themselves.  They  are  from  his  Remarques 
sur  le  Style:  —  "  Les  ouvrages  bien  ecrits  sont  les  seuls 

1  On  a  very  different,  but  by  no  means  inconsiderable  subject,  we 
quote  this  cordial  and  wise  passage  from  the  same  article.  Speaking  of 
the  odium  medicum,  "  The  true  remedy  for  professional  jealousies  is  fre- 
quent intercommunication,  —  a  good  dinner  at  the  Royal  would  heal  the 
professional  feuds  of  a  large  town.  The  man  of  science,  who  thinks  he 
practises  his  profession  for  the  sheer  love  of  it,  may  smile  at  the  sen- 
sualness  of  the  means,  and  it  may  not  be  the  remedy  he  requires  ;  but 
most  practitioners  are  men  of  the  metier,  and  like  a  dinner  of  the  craft 
as  well  as  others.  We  wish  there  were  a  medical  guild  in  every  large 
town,  with  an  ample  dinner  fund  —  good  fellowship  would  increase 
and  abound,  and  with  it  unity  of  purpose,  honor,  public  and  persona." 
esteem." 


EXCURSUS   ETHICUS.  277 

qui  passeront  a  la  poste'rite,  la  quantite  des  connais- 
sances,  la  singularite  des  faits,  la  nouveaute  meme  des 
de'couvertes,  ne  sont  pas  de  surs  garants  de  I'immortalite  ; 
si  les  ouvrages  qui  les  contieiinent  ne  roulent  que  sur  de 
petits  objets,  s'ils  sorit  ecrits  sans  gout,  noblesse,  et  sans 
genie,  ils  periront  parce  que  les  connaissances,  les  faits,  les 
de'couvertes  s'enlevent  aisement,  se  transportent,  gagnent 
meme  a  etre  mises  en  oeuvre  par  des  mains  plus  habiles. 
Les  choses  sont  hors  de  I'homme,  le  style  c'est  Ihomme 
meme"  Apples  of  gold  are  best  set  in  pictures  of  silver 
—  great  thoughts  and  natural  thoughts  should  be  great- 
ly and  naturally  said :  they  are  indeed  neither,  if  not. 
Lord  Jeffrey  said  to  a  young  friend  of  great  genius,  but 
addicted  to  long  and  odd  words,  and  to  coining  a  word 
now  and  then,  "  My  friend,  when  you  have  a  common 
thing  to  say,  say  it  in  a  common  way,  and  when  you 
have  an  uncommon  thing,  it  will  find  its  own  way  of 
saying  itself."  Let  no  one  des"pise  style.  If  thought  is 
the  gold,  style  is  the  stamp  which  makes  it  current,  and 
says  under  what  king  it  was  issued.  There  is  much  in 
what  Buffon  says  —  Style  is  the  man  himself.  Try  to 
put  Horace  or  Tacitus,  Milton,  Addison,  or  Goldsmith, 
Charles  Lamb  or  Thackeray,  into  other  words,  and  you 
mar,  and  likely  kill  the  thought  —  they  cease  to  be 
themselves. 

But  how  am  I  to  get  a  good  style  ?  Not  by  imitat- 
ing or  mimicking  any  one.  Not  by  trying  to  think  or  to 
write  like  any  one,  but  to  think  and  write  with  him.  It 
is  with  style  as  with  manners  and  good-breeding.  Keep 
good  company,  and  do  your  best,  and  you  will  write  and 
speak  and  act  like  a  gentleman,  because  you  think  and 
feel  and  live  with  gentlemen.  If  you  would  write  like 
,ke  ancient  masters,  read  them  and  relish  them  —  be 


278  EXCURSUS   ETHICUS. 

their  son,  not  their  ape.  Our  medical  writers  nowadays, 
with  a  few  signal  exceptions,  write  ill.  They  are  slov- 
enly, diffuse,  often  obscure,  and  curiously  involved.  The 
reasons  are :  jfirst,  the  enormous  amount  of  merely  pro- 
fessional knowledge  a  man  is  expected  to  master  before 
he  writes  on  any  subject,  and  the  absorbing  nature  of 
the  new  methods ;  secondly,  and  as  a  consequence,  the 
ignorance  of  general  literature,  and  the  much  less  asso- 
ciation by  men  of  medicine  with  men  of  letters,  now 
than  in  olden  times.  Arbuthnot  was  not  the  worse  phy- 
sician, and  all  the  better  writer,  from  his  being  the  com- 
panion of  those  famous  wits  whose  good  genius  and 
doctor  he  was ;  and  his  Treatises  on  Airs  and  Aliments 
are  all  the  better  of  being  the  work  of  a  man  who  took 
his  share  in  Martinus  Scriblerus,  and  wrote  the  History 
of  John  Bull. 

Currie,1  Aikin,  Gregory,  Heberden,  Cullen,  Ferriar, 
Gooch,  are  all  the  more  powerful,  and  all  the  more  per- 
manent as  medical  authorities,  from  their  having  learned, 
by  practice  and  by  example,  to  write  forcibly,  clearly, 
compactly,  and  with  dignity  and  grace. 

The  turbid,  careless  style,  constipated,  or  the  reverse, 
by  which  much  of  our  medical  literature  is  characterized, 
is  a  disgrace  to  our  age,  and  to  the  intelligence,  good 
taste,  and  good  breeding  of  our  profession,  and  mars  in- 

1  Do  our  young  readers  know  Carrie's  Life  by  his  son  ?  if  not  let 
them  get  it.     They  will  see  one  of  the  noblest,  purest  intellects  our 
profession  has  ever  had,  ardently  humane,  grave,  and  energetic,  tinged 
with  a  secret,  pensive  melancholy,  and  they  will  find  much  of  the  best 
knowledge  and  advice  for  their  conduct  in  life.     His  letters  to  his  son 
when  a  student  at  Edinburgh  College  may  be  read  alongside  of  Col- 
lingwood's  from  his  ship  to  his  daughters,  and  his  Jasper  Wilson's  Letter 
M  Mr.  Pitt  is  one  sustained  burst  of  eloquent  and  earnest  patriotism 
f  sound  political  philosophy,  and  strong  sense ;  it  was  flung  off  at 
heat,  and  was  his  only  appearance  in  public  affairs. 


EXCURSUS   ETHICUS.  279 

conceivably  the  good  that  lies  concealed  and  bungled 
within  it.  No  man  has  a  right  to  speak  without  some 
measure  of  preparation,  orderliness,  and  selectness.  As 
Butler  says,  "  Confusion  and  perplexity  of  writing  is 
indeed  without  excuse,  because  any  one,  if  he  pleases, 
may  know  whether  he  understands  and  sees  through 
what  he  is  about :  and  it  is  unpardonable  for  a  man  to 
lay  his  thoughts  before  others,  when  he  is  conscious  that 
he  himself  does  not  know  whereabouts  he  is,  or  how  the 
matter  before  him  stands.  It  is  coming  abroad  in  dis- 
order, which  he  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  find  himself  in  at 
home."  Whately,  in  reply  to  a  youth  who  asked  him 
how  to  write  clearly,  answered,  "  Think  clearly."  This 
is  the  secret. 

We  might,  had  space  permitted,  have  gone  more  par- 
ticularly into  the  higher  moralities  of  physicians,  and 
into  some  of  the  more  miscellaneous  conditions  which 
interpenetrate  morals,  manners,  and  etiquette  ;  for  eti- 
quette, with  all  its  littlenesses  and  niceties,  is  founded 
upon  a  central  idea  of  right  and  wrong ;  and  on  the 
Tightness  or  wrongness  of  that  idea  depends  the  true 
significance  and  worth  of  the  merest  punctilio. 

We  might  likewise  have  said  some  few  things  on  the 
public  and  professional  religion  of  a  doctor,  and  its  rela- 
tion to  his  personal ;  and  something,  also,  of  that  religi- 
osity which,  besides  its  ancient  endemic  force,  as  old  as 
our  race,  is  at  present  dangerously  epidemic  — a  pseudo- 
activity,  which  is  not  only  not  good,  but  virulently  bad, 
being  at  once  as  like  and  as  opposite  to  the  true  as 
hemlock  is  to  parsley. 

We  are  anxious  to  persuade  our  young  friends,  who, 
having  "passed  '  and  settled  down,  are  waiting  for 
practice,  —  not  merely  to  lm>y  themselves  for  the  next 


280  EXCURSUS   ETHICUS. 

seven  or  eight  barren  years  in  their  own  immediate  cir- 
cle —  we  are  sure  they  will  not  suspect  us  of  wishing 
them  to  keep  from  what  is  their  highest  duty  and  great- 
est pleasure,  — but  to  persuade  them,  when  they  have 
some  leisure  and  long  evenings,  and  few  "  cases,"  to  read 
the  works  of  such  men  as  Berkeley,  Butler,  Paley,  Bax- 
ter, Tucker,  Barrow,  Locke,  Principal  Campbell,  Reid, 
Dugald  Stewart,  Mackintosh,  Whately,  Alexander  Knox, 
etc. ;  to  keep  up  their  classical  knowledge,  and  go  over 
Horace's  Art  of  Poetry,  Cicero's  Epistles  and  Philosoph- 
ical Treatises,  Seneca,  Epictetus,  Marc  Autonine,  Quin- 
tilian,  and  such  like  —  not  to  mention  a  more  sacred 
book,  which  they  ought  to  read  all  their  lives,  and  use 
every  day,  as  the  perfect  rule  of  duty,  the  lamp  to  their 
feet,  the  light  to  their  eyes. 

We  may  be  thought  to  be  making  too  much  of  these 
things.  It  would  be  difficult  to  do  so,  when  we  consider 
what  we,  as  physicians,  are  supposed  to  possess  —  prac- 
tising, as  we  do,  not  merely  one  of  the  arts  of  life,  mak- 
ing an  honorable  living  —  and  enabling  our  fellow-men 
to  do  the  same  —  but  constantly  watching  at  that  awful 
fanua  vita  et  mortis,  our  main  duty  being  to  keep  men 
alive.  Let  us  remember  what  is  involved  in  the  enjoy- 
ment and  in  the  loss  of  life  —  that  perilous  and  inesti- 
mable something,  which  we  all  know  how  much  we  our- 
selves prize,  and  for  which,  as  we  have  the  word,  long 
ago,  of  a  personage  *  more  distinguished  for  his  talents 
than  his  virtues,  —  uttered  in  a  Presence  where  even  he 
dared  not  tell  a  lie  direct,  that  "  all  that  a  man  hath  he 
will  give,"  so  let  it  be  our  endeavor,  as  its  conservators, 
to  give  all  that  we  have,  our  knowledge,  our  affections, 
our  energies,  our  virtue  (apenj,  vir-tus,  the  very  essence 
i  Job  ii.  4. 


EXCURSUS   ETHICUS.  281 

or  pith  of  a  man),  in  doing  our  best  to  make  our  pa- 
tients healthy,  long-lived,  and  happy. 

We  conclude  with  two  quotations,  the  first  from  the 
mouth  of  one  l  of  the  best  men  of  our  profession  —  one 
of  the  greatest  of  public  benefactors  —  one  of  the  truest 
and  most  genial  of  friends — and  of  whose  merits  we 
would  say  more,  were  he  not  still,  to  our  great  comfort, 
in  the  midst  of  us,  —  for  we  agree  with  the  ancients  in 
this,  as  in  some  other  things,  that  it  is  not  becoming  to 
sacrifice  to  our  heroes  till  after  sunset:  —  "  My  religion 
consists  mainly  of  wonder  and  gratitude"  This  is  the 
religion  of  paradise  and  of  childhood.  It  will  not  be 
easy  to  find  a  better,  even  in  our  enlightened  days  ;  only 
it  must  be  a  rational  wonder,  a  productive  gratitude  — 
the  gratitude,  that  of  a  man  who  does  not  rest  contented 
with  the  emotion,  but  goes  at  once  into  the  motive,  and 
that  a  motive  which  really  moves  —  and  the  wonder, 
that  of  a  man  who,  in  reverencing  God,  knows  him,  and 
in  honoring  all  men,  respects  himself. 

The  next  is  the  admonition  we  have  already  referred 
to,  by  Sydenham.  Our  readers  will  find,  at  its  close, 
the  oldest  and  best  kind  of  homoeopathy  —  a  kind  which 
will  survive  disease  and  the  doctors,  and  will  never,  as 
may  be  said  of  the  other,  cure  nothing  but  itself. 

"  He  who  gives  himself  to  the  study  and  work  of  med- 
icine ought  seriously  to  ponder  these  four  things  —  1st, 
That  he  must,  one  day,  give  an  account  to  the  Supreme 
Judge  of  the  lives  of  the  sick  committed  to  his  care. 
2c#y,  That  whatsoever  of  art,  or  of  science,  he  has  by 
the  Divine  goodness  attained,  is  to  be  directed  mainly 
to  the  glory  of  the  Almighty,  and  the  safety  of  mankind, 
and  that  it  is  a  dishonor  to  himself  and  them,  to  make 
1  Dr.  Henry  Marshall,  who  died  soon  after  this  was  written. 


282  EXCURSUS  ETHICS. 

these  celestial  gifts  subservient  to  the  vile  lusts  of  avarice 
and  ambition.  Moreover,  3dly,  that  he  has  undertaken 
the  charge  of  no  mean  or  ignoble  creature,  and  that  in 
order  to  his  appreciating  the  true  worth  of  the  human 
race,  he  should  not  forget  that  the  only-begotten  Son  of 
God  became  a  man,  and  thus  far  ennobled,  by  his  own 
dignity,  the  nature  he  assumed.  And,  lastly,  that  as  he  is 
himself  not  exempted  from  the  common  lot,  and  is  liable 
and  exposed  to  the  same  laws  of  mortality,  the  same 
miseries  and  pains,  as  are  all  the  rest ;  so  he  may  en- 
deavor the  more  diligently,  and  with  a  more  tender 
affection,  as  being  himself  a  fellow-sufferer  (o/xotoTra^Tj?), 
to  help  them  who  are  sick." 

For  to  take  a  higher,  the  highest,  example,  we  must 
"  be  touched  with  a  feeling  of  the  infirmities "  of  our 
patients,  else  all  our  skill  and  knowledge  will  go  but 
half-way  to  relieve  or  cure. 


BOOKS  REFERRED  TO. 

1.  Percival's  Medical  Ethics  ;  new  edition,  with  Notes,  by  Dr. 
Greenhill.  —  2.  Code  of  Medical  Ethics  ;  by  the  American  Medical  As- 
sociation.—  3.  Richard  Baxter's  Compassionate  Counsel  to  Students 
of  Physic.  —  4.  Sir  Thomas  Browne's  Religio  Medici,  and  Christian 
Morals. — 5.  Gaubius  de  Regimine  Mentis  quod  Medicorum  est. — 
6.  Fuller's  "  Good  Physician,"  and  "Life  of  Paracelsus,"  in  his 
"Holy  and  Profane  State." — 7.  Simon,  De"ontologie  Medicale,  ou 
des  Devoirs  et  des  Droits  de  Me'decins. —  8.  Gisborne,  Gregory,  and 
Ware,  on  the  Duties  of  a  Physician.  —  9.  Hufeland  on  the  Relations 
of  the  Physician  to  the  Sick,  to  the  Public,  and  to  his  Colleagues.  — 

10.  British  and  Foreign  Medical  Journal  for  April  1846,  Art.  ix. — 

11.  Aikin's  Letters  to  his  Son  on  the  Choice  of  a  Profession  and  the 
Conduct  of  Life. 


DR.  JOHN  SCOTT  AND  HIS  SON. 

MR.   SYME. 
SIR  ROBERT  CHRISTISON,  BART. 


DR.  JOHN  SCOTT, 

;OMPANION  of  Mr.  Syme  and  Dr.  Sharpey, 
and  that  crew,  and  friend  of  Dr.  Combe  and 
Sir  James  Clark,  was  one  of  six  (all  dark 
haired  and  eyed)  sons  of  the  great  store-farmer  of  Sing- 
lie  in  Ettrick,  a  man  of  the  old  Border  breed,  strenu- 
ous, peremptory,  full  of  fight,  who,  had  he  lived  300 
years  earlier,  might  have  been  a  Jock  o'  the  Side,  a  Dick 
o'  the  Cow,  or  a  Kinmont  Willie.  John  studied  medicine, 
went  to  India,  came  home,  studied  again  at  Paris,  and 
was  among  the  first  to  learn  from  Laennec  the  use  of 
the  stethoscope,  of  which  he  became  a  master.  He 
married  and  settled  in  Edinburgh,  and  soon  gathered  a 
large  practice,  as  all  the  south  country  folk  went  to  him 
as  to  a  wizard.  He  had  no  ambition,  was  very  shy, 
hated  to  take  fees,  read  incessantly  English,  French,  and 
German,  could  bring  out  fish  in  the  Gala  when  no  one 
else  could,  and  had  an<  instinct  for  finding  out  disease 
like  that  of  a  pointer  for  game. 

His  only  son,  WILLIAM  HENRY,  —  Willie,  as  we 
called  him,  —  was  a  "  marvellous  boy,"  withered  in  all 
the  leaves  of  his  spring.  I  never  knew  one  more  gifted, 
or  one  more  innocent  and  good.  He  had  got  the  mini- 
mum dose  of  the  virus  of  original  sin,  and  he  gave  it  no 
encouragement.  I  never  knew  a  more  sinless  lad.  He 
read  everything,  remembered  everything.  He  told  me- 
with  perfect  simplicity,  he  "didn't  know  how  to  forget.' 


286  DR.  JOHN   SCOTT. 

I  have  often  laid  traps  for  him  as  to  this,  bat  never 
caught  him.  Of  a  trivial  article  in  Chambers' 's  Journal, 
or  anywhere  else,  he  gave  you  right  off  the  number  and 
the  page.  To  please  his  father  he  went  through  victo- 
riously all  the  medical  classes,  and  took  his  degree,  hav- 
ing an  inborn  dislike  to  the  study,  while  all  the  time  he 
was  steadily  pursuing  his  own  great  line  —  gathering 
his  Bactrian,  Parthian,  and  Sassauian  coins  —  drawing 
wide  inferences  from  them  and  all  else.  He  died  of  con- 
sumption, and  had  that  vivid  life  and  brightness  —  as 
his  eyes  showed  —  which  so  often  attend  that  sad  mal- 
ady, in  which  the  body  and  soul,  as  if  knowing  their 
time  here  was  short  —  burn  as  if  in  oxygen  gas  —  and 
have  "Hope  the  charmer"  with  them  to  the  last  — 
putting  into  these  twenty  years  the  energy,  the  enjoy- 
ment, the  mental  capital  and  raptures  of  a  long  life.  So 
mature,  so  large,  and  so  innerly  was  his  knowledge,  that 
after  his  death,  letters  of  sorrow  came  from  the  Conti- 
nent, and  elsewhere,  indicating  that  he  was  considered 
twice  his  real  age.  I  cannot  resist  giving  the  following 
tribute  by  Mr.  George  Sim,  Curator  of  Coins  to  our  So- 
ciety of  Antiquaries,  and  the  unforgetting  friend  of  this 
indeed  "  marvellous  boy,"  whose  sun  went  down  in  its 
"  sweet  hour  of  prime  :  "  — 

"  On  4th  October  1855,  died  our  much  lamented  friend, 
William  Henry  Scott,  M.  D.,  aged  twenty-four  years, 
and  by  his  death  Scotland  lost  perhaps  her  most  brilliant 
scholar.  Although  he  has  now  been  dead  longer  than 
he  lived,  yet  his  memory  is  as  fondly  cherished  as  if  he 
had  died  but  yesterday,  and  the  results  of  his  wonderful 
researches  are  still  attracting  our  admiration. 

"  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  it  was  possible  in  so 
short  a  life  to  acquire  so  varied  an  amount  of  knowledge 


DR.   JOHN  SCOTT.  287 

as  Dr.  Scott  possessed,  especially  when  we  consider  his 
delicate  constitution  and  toilsome  course  of  education. 

"  From  his  earliest  years  his  mind  had  been  directed 
to  historical  and  philological  research,  which  his  wonder- 
ful memory  (for  he  could  not  forget)  enabled  him  to 
embody  and  utilize  with  accuracy  when  opportunity  of- 
fered. 

"  Having  been  a  member  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society 
of  France,  and  of  other  learned  societies  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  he  maintained  an  interesting  and  instructive 
correspondence  with  savants  of  many  countries,  and  con- 
tributed to  their  periodicals  in  their  own  languages.  He 
had  deciphered  upwards  of  thirty  languages  with  no 
other  aid  than  that  derived  from  books,  his  purpose  be- 
ing to  compare  all  the  alphabets  of  ancient  and  modern 
times,  and  as  far  as  possible  the  languages,  the  remains 
of  numismatic  art,  and  other  records,  with  the  general 
history  of  the  world,  as  deduced  from  a  widely  extended 
course  of  inferential  reasoning  based  on  known  facts; 
and  if  Dr.  Scott  had  been  spared  to  carry  out  the  course 
he  had  shaped  for  himself,  there  can  be  no  doubt  (con- 
sidering the  splendid  results  of  the  researches  with  which 
he  had  already  enriched  us)  that  he  would  have  been 
able  to  accomplish  wonderful  work. 

"  A  wide  field  for  students  of  archaeology  had  been 
opened  up  in  India,  and  in  the  more  western  parts  of 
Asia,  and  the  observations  of  many  great  scholars 
(whose  names  need  not  be  here  enumerated)  had  been 
appreciated  and  highly  prized,  but  few  of  them  had  any 
numismatic  knowledge,  so  that  the  results  of  their  in 
vestigations  were  not  always  satisfactory ;  yet  here  it 
was  that  the  brilliant  genius  of  Dr.  Scott  shone  forth, 
which,  through  his  knowledge  of  so  many  dead  languages 


288  DR.   JwTIX    ;COTT. 

and  numismatics,  enabled  him  to  take  the  lead,  and  to 
withdraw  the  veil  that  enshrouded  the  prospect  we  had 
so  long  and  so  ardently  desired  to  explore. 

"  If  Dr.  Scott's  papers  and  extensive  correspondence 
could  have  been  collected,  they  would  present  a  series 
of  discoveries,  and  sound  and  ingenious  observations  of 
the  highest  importance.  His  contributions  to  the  Nu- 
mismatic Chronicle  alone  (which  attracted  much  notice 
at  the  time  of  their  appearance)  would  form  a  goodly 
volume. 

"  A  school-fellow  and  early  associate  of  Dr.  Scott 
(Dr.  F.  de  Chaumont,  now  of  Netley,  then  in  India) 
thus  wrote  on  hearing  of  the  death  of  his  friend  :  —  'It 
is  difficult  as  yet  to  realize  fully  the  loss  we  have  sus- 
tained. He  was  such  an  excellent  man,  so  good  a  friend, 
and  so  wonderful  a  scholar.  He  was  indeed  one  of  those 
early  lights  whose  very  intensity  precludes  their  burning 
long,  and  whom  God  has  withdrawn  to  Himself,  as  a 
guiding  star  of  whom  the  world  was  scarce  worthy.' " 


MR.   SYME. 

|i^|?ERHAPS  I  was  too  near  Mr.  Syme  to  see  and 
measure  him  accurately,  but  he  remains  in  my 
mind  as  one  of  the  best  and  ablest  and  most 
beneficent  of  men.  He  was  my  master  —  my  apprentice- 
fee  bought  him  his  first  carriage,  a  gig,  and  I  got  the 
first  ride  in  it  —  and  he  was  my  friend.  He  was  I  be- 
lieve the  greatest  surgeon  Scotland  ever  produced;  and 
I  cannot  conceive  of  a  greater,  hardly  of  as  great,  a 
clinical  teacher.  To  be  all  this  he  must  have  had  quali- 
ties, native  and  acquired,  fitting  him  for  preeminence  in 
almost  any  sphere  of  power  in  thought  or  action. 

His  life,  till  he  won  his  victory,  when  he  was  half 
through  it,  was  an  almost  continual  combat  with  men  and 
things.  Sensitive,  strong-willed,  shy,  having  a  stammer, 
bent  upon  reaching  reality  and  the  best  in  everything ; 
he  had  to  struggle  with  imperfect  means,  family  disaster, 
and  inadequate  power  of  expressing  his  mind.  He  was 
full  of  genuine  virtue  and  affection  (the  more  the  deeper 
in).  With  singular  keenness  and  exactness  of  the  outer 
and  inner  eye,  he  touched  everything  to  the  quick.  He 
was  ever  ready  for  a  joke,  but  as  a  habit  of  mind  was 
serious  and  in  earnest.  Bent  on  getting  knowledge  at 
first  hand,  he  was  therefore  somewhat  neglectful  of 
other  men's  knowledge,  and  especially  if  at  third  hand. 
Full  of  a  child's  enjoyment  of  nature  in  her  flowers  and 

19 


290  MR.   SYME. 

wilds,  he  had  also  all  his  days  a  passion  for  cultivating 
and  enjoying  fruits  and  flowers.  He  was  kindly  to  oddi- 
ties of  all  sorts  ;  loving  the  best  music,  hating  all  other ; 
little  capable  of  poetry,  but  when  capable  it  must  be  the 
best ;  not  sentimental,  rather  sensible  and  sensitive,  es- 
pecially the  first,  but  not  without  romance.  He  was  the 
discoverer  of  the  solubility  of  caoutchouc  in  coal-tar,  and 
therefore  entitled  to  an  immense  fortune  had  he  patented 
it.1  He  did  not  read  much  hard  or  heavy  reading ;  it 
was  diversion  he  sought  rather  than  information.  The 
action  of  his  mind  was  so  intense  during  his  hours  of 
work,  that,  like  a  race-horse,  doing  his  day's  work  in 
not  many  minutes,  though  putting  his  capital  of  life  into 
that  supreme  act,  he  needed  and  relished  perfect  diastole 
—  relaxation ;  and  as  Mr.  Comrie  of  Penicuik  said  of 
himself,  "  his  constitution  could  stand  a  great  deal  of 
ease,"  though  ready  at  any  moment  for  any  emergency 
and  for  the  full  play  of  his  utmost. 

I  was  the  first  to  see  him  when  struck  down  by  hemi- 
plegia.  It  was  in  Shandwick  Place,  where  he  had  his 
chambers  —  sleeping  and  enjoying  his  evenings  in  his 
beautiful  Millbank,  with  its  flowers,  its  matchless  orchids, 
and  heaths,  and  azaleas,  its  bananas,  and  grapes,  and 
peaches  ;  with  Blackford  Hill  —  where  Marmion  saw 
the  Scottish  host  mustering  for  Flodden  —  in  front,  and 
the  Pentlands,  with  Cairketton  Hill,  their  advanced 
guard,  cutting  the  sky,  its  ruddy,  porphyry  scaur,  hold- 
ing the  slanting  shadows  in  its  bosom.  He  was,  as  be« 
fore  said,  in  his  room  at  Shandwick  Place,  sitting  in  his 
chair,  having  been  set  up  by  his  faithful  Blackbell.  His 

1  He  sent  a  letter  to  the  Annals  of  Philosophy  of  March  1818  an- 
nouncing this  discovery.  It  appeared  in  August,  and  soon  after  Mr. 
Macintosh  took  out  the  patent  which  made  his  name  famous. 


MR.   SYME.  291 

face  was  distorted.  He  said — "John,  this  is  the  con- 
clusion," and  so  in  much  it  was,  to  his,  and  our,  and  the 
world's  sad  cost.  He  submitted  to  his  fate  with  manly 
fortitude,  but  he  felt  it  to  its  uttermost.  Struck  down  in 
his  prime,  full  of  rich  power,  abler  than  ever  to  do  good 
to  men ;  his  soul  surviving  his  brain,  and  looking  on  at 
its  steady  ruin  during  many  sad  months. 

He  became  softer,  gentler,  —  more  easily  moved,  even 
to  tears,  —  but  the  judging  power,  the  perspicacity,  the 
piercing  to  the  core,  remained  untouched.  Hencefor- 
ward, of  course,  life  was  maimed.  How  he  bore  up 
against  this,  resigning  his  delights  of  teaching,  of  doing 
good  to  men,  of  seeing  and  cherishing  his  students,  of 
living  in  the  front  of  the  world ;  how  he  accepted  all 
this,  those  only  nearest  him  can  know.  I  have  never 
seen  anything  more  pathetic  than  when  near  his  death 
he  lay  speechless,  but  full  of  feeling  and  mind,  and  made 
known  in  some  inscrutable  way  to  his  old  gardener  and 
friend  that  he  wished  to  see  a  certain  orchid,  which  he 
knew  should  then  be  in  flower.  The  big,  clumsy,  know- 
ing Paterson,  glum  and  victorious  (he  was  forever  get- 
ting prizes  at  the  Horticultural),  brought  it  —  the  Stan- 
hopea  tigrina  —  in,  without  a  word,  —  it  was  the  very 
one.  Radiant  in  beauty,  white,  with  a  brown  freckle, 
.^ike  Imogen's  mole,  and  like  it,  "  right  proud  of  that 
most  delicate  lodging ; "  he  gazed  at  it,  and,  bursting 
>nto  a  passion  of  tears,  motioned  it  away  as  insufferable. 

He  had  that  quality  of  primary  minds  of  attaching 
permanently  those  he  had  relations  to.  His  students 
never  ceased  to  love  him  and  return  to  him  from  all 
regions  of  the  world.  He  was  in  this  a  solar  man,  and 
had  his  planets  pacing  faithfully  round  him. 

He  was  somewhat  slow  in  adopting  new  things,  ex- 


292  MB.   SYME. 

cept  his  own.  He  desired  to  prove  all  things,  and  then 
he  held  fast  that  which  was  good.  This  was  the  case 
with  chloroform  and  the  antiseptic  doctrine,  which  the 
world  owes  —  and  what  a  debt !  —  to  his  great  son-in- 
law,  Joseph  Lister ;  but  new-fangledness  per  se  he  dis- 
liked. He  had  beautiful  hands,  small  and  strong ;  and 
their  work  on  skeletons  of  serpents  in  the  College  of 
Surgeons  is  still  unmatched. 

He  was  all  his  life  a  Liberal  in  politics.  His  style 
was  the  perfection  of  clearness  and  force,  —  his  master 
having  been  William  Cobbett.  As  a  man,  who  himself 
knows  how  to  use  language,  said  of  him  "  he  never 
wastes  a  drop  of  blood  or  of  ink." 

Of  what  he  was  to  me,  —  his  patience,  his  affection, 
his  trust,  his  wisdom,  —  and  still  more,  what  he  might 
have  been  to  me  had  I  made  the  most  of  him,  it  is  not  for 
me  now  to  speak.  He  remains  in  my  mind  as  one  of  the 
strongest,  clearest,  capablest,  most  valuable  understand- 
ings ;  —  one  of  the  warmest,  truest  hearts,  I  have  had 
the  privilege  and  the  responsibility  of  knowing.  Heu! 
quanta  minus  est  cum  reliquis  versari,  quam  lui  memi- 
nisse  !  He  had  his  faults,  who  has  n't  ?  —  but  they  were 
superficial,  and  therefore  seen  by  all  men.  In  his  quar- 
rels, —  and  he  was  a  man  of  war  from  his  youth  up  till 
late  manhood,  —  he  was  almost  always  right  in  the  mat- 
ter, sometimes  wrong  in  the  manner,  and  the  world  we 
know  often  makes  more  of  manner  than  of  matter. 

But  the  deeper  you  cut  into  him  the  richer,  the 
sweeter,  the  stronger  the  substance.  He  was  irritable 
at,  and  impatient  of  stupidity,  and  long-windedness  and 
pretence ;  and  at  falsehood,  quackery,  and  trickery  of 
all  sorts,  he  went  like  a  terrier  at  a  rat. 

I  once  went  with  him  and  Mrs.  Syme  to  Lochore,  his 


MR.   SYME.  293 

father's  lost  estate,  and  where  he  lived  as  a  boy,  and 
had  never  again  been  for  more  than  forty  years,  and 
which  he  had  some  thought  of  purchasing  back.  We 
drove  up  from  Burntisland,  and  at  Lochgelly  he  was 
full  of  memories  of  the  saintly  Seceder  minister,  Mr. 
Greig,  and  pointed  out  at  Auchtertool  the  fatal  meadow 
now  lying  in  the  sun,  where  Stuart  of  Dunearn  shot  Sir 
Alexander  Boswell.  As  we  came  near  Lochore  his  be- 
came very  silent  and  eager-eyed. 

It  was  in  decay,  all  things  rude  and  waste.  We  went 
into  the  old  garden.  He  went  off  alone,  and  wondering 
at  his  stay  I  sought  him  and  found  him  leaning  on  an 
old  sundial.  He  was  sobbing  and  in  tears  !  "  No,  no, 
John,  never  again,  never,  this  is  not  my  Lochore." 

Here  is  the  kind  of  good  he  did.  A  well-known  public 
man,  of  strong  will  and  perfect  courage,  told  me  that  he 
had  been  suffering  from  a  local  affection,  which  made 
life  unbearable.  The  day  before  he  saw  Mr.  Syme  he 
had  determined  to  end  his  misery  and  his  life,  and  he 
was  a  man  to  keep  his  word.1  Mr.  Syme  saw  him,  per- 
formed an  operation  of  his  own  invention,  and  my  friend 
lived  for  many  years  in  full  health  and  activity.  What 
a  thing  to  have  done ! 

Here  is  a  humorous  bit.  There  is  a  dreadful  and 
ludicrous  disease  of  the  nose,  which  some  of  my  readers 
may  have  had  the  misfortune  to  see.  It  is  an  enormous, 
shapeless  enlargement,  which  horrible  thing  is  forever 
in  its  possessor's  eye,  and,  as  I  have  seen,  projects  below 
the  mouth,  and  wags.  A  most  excellent  country  clergy- 
man, beloved  by  his  people,  had  such  a  nose ;  he  was 

l  I  knew  a  man  who  did  end  his  misery  for  not  so  strong  a  cause ; 
he  had  bad  eczema ;  he  committed  suicide,  and  left  on  his  table  his 
--ail,  with  ''tired  scratching"  on  it. 


29-4  MR.    SYME. 

more  distressed  for  others  than  for  himself,  and  he  ap- 
plied to  Mr.  Syme,  who  said  he  would  give  him  back 
his  old  nose,  and  that  he  had  a  chance  few  men  had,  of 
choosing  its  style.  Would  he  like  the  Grecian  or  the 
Roman  or  the  Cogitative  ?  "  The  Cogitative,"  said  the 
stout  and  gravely  humorous  Calvinist,  and  to  work  we 
went. 

Mr.  Syme  was  one  of  the  first  to  show  how  this  horrid 
growth  should  be  dealt  with,  so  he  carefully  pared  off 
all  the  wattle,  Bardolphian  stuff ;  and  our  friend  went 
back  to  his  faithful  colliers  —  his  quarrymen  and  his 
sailors  and  their  wives,  with  a  nose  as  good  in  color  and 
in  shape  as  any  of  theirs ;  indeed  they  were  not  quite 
pleased  at  the  new  nose,  for  they  said  other  people 
would  covet  and  "call"  him. 

Good  ministers  of  the  gospel,  especially  country  ones, 
he  delighted  in,  and  knew  them  at  once  from  their  op- 
posites,  as  one  knows  parsley  from  hemlock.  He  once 
went  out  to  near  Biggar  to  perform  a  serious  operation 
on  a  hind's  wife.  When  he  arrived  at  the  cottage  he 
found  "  the  minister  "  was  there,  my  dear  sunny-hearted 
Uncle  Smith.  The  gudeman  said  to  Mr.  Syme  —  "  Oo 
wud  like  a  bit  prayer  first."  "  By  all  means,"  said  Mr. 
Syme.  It  was  short  and  strong,  and  asked  the  help  and 
blessing  of  the  Eternal  on  the  surgeon  and  on  the  pa- 
tient. "  And  we  were  both  the  better  of  it,"  said  the 
surgeon,  and  this,  not  from  a  transcendental  and  debat- 
able point  of  view,  but  from  the  simple  effect  on  the 
minds  of  both. 

Everything  on  his  own  subject  that  he  wrote  is  good. 
His  Principles  of  Surgery  are  really  first  things,  and  his 
style,  as  I  have  said,  was  the  perfection  of  terse  clear- 
ness. As  his  shyness  wore  off,  and  he  felt  his  power 


MR.   SYME.  295 

and  his  mind  became  enriched,  so  his  language  blos- 
somed out,  and,  as  it  were,  enjoyed  itself,  but  it  was 
always  like  his  knife,  —  to  the  point. 

He  was  always  well  "  put  on,"  but  never  dressy.  His 
students  will  well  remember  his  checked  neckerchief  of 
bright  Earlston  gingham,  uugetable  now,  the  tie  of  which 
I  labored  in  vain  for  years  to  achieve.  He  was  the  most 
'rapid  dresser  I  ever  knew. 

'  He  and  his  cousin  and  great  rival  Listen  went  out  to 
Dumfries  to  experiment  with  galvanism  upon  the  body 
of  a  murderer  after  being  hung,  and  he  said  he  could 
never  forget  the  look  of  the  wretched  man  who  had 
hopes  of  being  brought  to  life,  as  he  strode  along  the 
passage  to  his  doom,  having  brea-kfasted  copiously,  and 
smacking  his  lips  as  he  went.  The  experiment  failed ; 
he  did  n't  return. 

The  worst  thing  about  him  was  his  handwriting ;  it 
was  worse  than  Lord  Jeffrey's,  or  Dean  Stanley's,  or 
old  Edward  Ellice's,  and  his  friend  Lord  Dunfermline's, 
and  was  only  excelled,  in  badness,  by  the  strong-hearted 
and  strong-brained  old  Whig,  Thomas  Kennedy  of  Dun- 
ure,  one  of  that  small  and  intrepid  band  which  emanci- 
pated Scotland,  when,  in  the  words  of  his  friend  Lord 
Cockburn,  "  We  were  concentrated  by  being  crushed." 
I  should  not  speak,  for  I  write  a  hand  which  my  father 
said  had  every  fine  quality  except  the  being  legible ;  but 
surely  a  moral  obligation  lies  upon  every  man  to  write 
as  distinctly  as  he  speaks  and  can.  Thackery  was  a 
model  in  this ;  his  writing  is  as  clear  and  as  clean  as  his 
style  ;  and  so  was  Scott's,  though  his  hand  ran  rather 
too  fast  to  have  time  to  dot  his  I's  or  stroke  his  i's. 

Mr.  Syme  was  what  might  be  called  a  little  man,  but, 
like  Fox  Maule,  could  never  be  felt  as  one.  A  homely 


296  MR.    STME. 

face,  better  above  than  below,  a  very  full  beautifully 
modelled  forehead,  especially  that  line  springing  from 
the  outer  eyebrow.  I  never  saw  —  in  a  man  —  finer, 
more  expressive  eyes  —  dark  gray.  I  have  seen  Jef- 
frey's, Cockburn's,  and  Rutherfurd's,  and  Gladstone's, 
Sir  Wm.  Hamilton's,  and  my  father's  eyes,  but  none  of 
them  had  so  much  meaning  as  his  —  such  crystalline 
pureness;  in  old  Wither's  words,  they  were  eyes  that 
"  unto  me  did  seem  more  comfortable  than  the  day." 
His  mouth,  where  temper  lies,  was  not  so  good  as  his 
eyes,  where  knowledge  and  affection  dwell  and  speak. 
He  was  very  well  made,  as  more  little  men  and  dogs  are 
than  big ;  his  feet  were  as  tidy  as  his  hands,  and  for  a 
short  race  his  legs  could  beat  his  friend  Christison's,  who 
might  have  won  Atalanta  without  the  apples.  His  voice 
was  not  good,  except  when  moved  and  confidential;  he 
hesitated  and  hardly  did  justice  to  his  words  —  though 
in  all  this  he  greatly  improved.  I  have  heard  him  when 
he  began  in  Minto  House  (the  scene  of  one  of  the  most 
signal  triumphs  any  man  could  rejoice  in),  he  would, 
from  impatience  at  his  mind  outrunning  its  servant  the 
mouth,  leave  a  sentence  it  had  boggled  at,  in  disdain, 
standing  as  it  were  on  one  leg  —  but  we  all  knew  what 
the  other  was.  In  speaking  he  reversed  Ovid's  words, 
his  material  transcended  his  workmanship. 

There  is  a  good,  but  not  the  best,  likeness  of  him  in 
marble  by  Brodie ;  it  wants  his  look  of  breeding.  Rich- 
mond took  him  in  one  of  those,  to  use  a  much-abused 
word,  charming  drawings,  in  which  every  one  looks  de- 
lightful and  thoroughbred  and  like  the  man,  but  some- 
times not  quite  the  man,  and  which  are  all  like  each  other. 
It  is  of  it  that  Mr.  Syme  told  that  when  the  artist  al- 
lowed him  to  see  the  drawing  when  finished,  he  said,  "  It 


MR.    SYME.  297 

is  like,  but  then  it  is  good-looking  !  "  "  Ah,  yes,  we  do 
it  lovingly."  I  wish  some  of  our  artists  would  at  least 
not  do  the  reverse  of  this. 

The  photograph  taken  at  St.  Andrews  by  Adamson 
gives  the  fullest  idea  of  his  nature  —  its  strength  and 
gentleness  in  repose.  It  has,  too,  his  might-be  formida- 
ble look,  —  a  look  we  all  knew,  and  did  not  desire  to  see 
repeated. 

In  his  little  room  in  the  Surgical  Hospital  —  once  the 
High  School  —  where  Sir  Walter,  Jeffrey,  Cockburn, 
Homer,  and  Brougham  were  bred  —  his  house-surgeons 
and  clerks  and  dressers  —  now  all  over  the  world,  work- 
ing out  his  principles  and  practice  —  will  well  remember 
how  delightful  he  was,  standing  with  his  back  to  the  fire, 
making  wise  jokes  — jacula  prudentis  —  now  abating  a 
procacious  youth,  now  heartening  a  shy  homely  one, 
himself  liaud  ignarus,  —  giving  his  old  stories  of  Greg- 
ory and  Dr.  Barclay.  How  the  latter  —  who  had  been 
a  "  stickit  minister,"  was  a  capital  teacher  of  anatomy 
and  good  sense  —  used  to  say  to  his  students,  —  "  Gen- 
tlemen !  Vesaalius  and  his  fellows  were  the  reapers  in 
the  great  field  of  anatomy  —  John  Hunter  and  his  breth- 
ren were  the  gleaners  —  and  we  —  gentlemen  !  —  are  the 
stubble  geese  !  "  Little  thought  he  of  the  harvest  that 
lay  at  the  roots  of  the  stubble  —  and  all  the  revelations 
of  the  microscope,  the  cell  theory  —  and  much  else! 
Then  there  was  the  story  of  Dr.  Greville,  the  botanist, 
telling  him,  Dr.  Barclay,  that  he  had  been  out  at  Mid- 
dleton  Moor,  searching  all  day  in  vain  for  Buxbaumia 
Aphylla.  "  Bux  what  ?  and  what 's  remarkable  about 
it  ?  "  "  It's  a  very  rare  moss  and  very  difficult  to  find." 
"  Weel,  I  lost  a  sixpence  when  I  had  few  o'  them, 
fifty  years  ago,  on  Middleton  Moor,  and  searched  for  it 


298  MR.    SYME. 

maist  of  a  day  —  gang  oot  and  try  —  it'll  be  as  difficult 
to  find  as  your  Buxbaumia  ;  "  and  then  we  had  John 
Abernethy,  whom  he  thought  the  greatest  surgical  mind 
since  John  Hunter  and  Percival  Pott;  and  his  joke  with 
the  lady  of  quality,  who  came  to  him  and  said,  "  I  'm 
quite  well,  Mr.  Abernethy."  "  So  I  see,  Madam."  "  But, 
Mr.  Abernethy,  whenever  I  do  that "  (making  a  vehement 
and  preposterous  flourish  of  her  hand  over  her  head),  "  I 
have  a  terrible  pain."  "Then,  Madam,  why  the  devil 
do  you  do  that  ?  "  It  was  in  this  little  room  Mr.  Syme 
was  in  his  glory  and  let  his  whole  nature  out  —  and 
these  daily  treats  were  interspersed  with  remarks  on  the 
current  patients  —  making  the  dressers  tell  their  sev- 
eral stones —  and  always  as  thoughtful  as  keen,  filling 
their  eager  minds  as  they  stood  in  a  semicircle  before 
him,  intentique  ora  tenebant  —  with  truths  the  value  of 
which  they  found  in  after  years.  And  there  were  Mrs. 
Porter  and  Mrs.  Lambert,  the  nurses,  who  reigned  over 
the  male  and  female  wards  —  who  will  ever  forget  their 
kind  and  shrewd  faces,  and  old-fashioned  sense  and 
tongues  ? 

The  following  words  by  Mr.  Lister  give  his  estimate 
of  his  master  and  father-in-law's  worth :  — 

"  Mr.  Syme  may  be  said  to  have  been  as  a  surgeon 
'  in  all  supreme,  complete  in  every  part.'  In  clear  per- 
ception and  luminous  exposition  of  surgical  principles, 
both  pathological  and  practical,  he  stood  unrivalled ;  yet 
he  was  equally  conspicuous  for  the  correctness  of  his 
diagnosis,  his  originality  and  ingenuity  in  device,  and  his 
admirable  excellence  in  execution.  His  success  was  due 
not  merely  to  his  great  intellectual  gifts  and  manual 
dexterity,  but  full  as  much  to  his  genial,  sympathizing 


MR.   SYME.  299 

love  alike  for  patient  and  student,  his  transparent  truth- 
fulness, and  his  exalted  sense  of  honor.  These  noble 
qualities  made  him  keen  in  the  pursuit  of  his  science,  sin- 
gle-minded and  earnest  in  the  discharge  of  surgical  duty, 
and  influential  for  good  in  an  immeasurable  degree 
with  those  who  came  within  the  range  of  his  personal 
teaching." 


SIR  ROBERT   CHRISTISON. 

E  of  our  oldest  and  most  distinguished  citi- 
zens —  a  man  of  European  reputation  —  was 
laid  in  his  grave  yesterday,1  followed  by  a  mul- 
titude of  mourners. 

Sir  Robert  Christison  was  our  ultimus  Romanorum, 
—  for  he  had  in  him  much  of  the  best  of  the  old  Ro- 
man, —  the  last  of  the  great  race ;  his  companions  at 
starting  —  the  Gregorys,  Alison,  and  Syme,  etc.  —  all 
gone  before  him.  He  was,  as  to  will  and  ability,  a  pri- 
mary man ;  not  that  he  was  what  is  commonly  called  a 
man  of  genius,  rather  he  was  a  man  of  a  quite  unusual 
quantity  and  quality  of  talent,  —  that  is,  power  of  ap- 
plying his  faculties  to  given  objects.  Mr.  Syme  had 
talent  and  genius  too,  but  Christison  had  what  might  be 
called  a  genius  for  exact  and  strenuous  work,  for  general 
energizing  of  body  and  mind.  He  had  a  knack  of  get- 
ting things  at  first  hand  ;  his  knowledge  was  immediate, 
more  than  mediate.  He  was  emphatically  an  Edinburgh 
man,  —  all  his  life  long  going  in  and  out  before  us,  seen 
and  read  of  all  men.  No  man  ever  thought  there  was 
in  him  what  was  not  there,  though  many  might  not  find 
all  that  was  there,  for  his  heart  was  not  worn  on  his 
sleeve ;  and  in  some  of  the  deeper  parts  of  his  nature 
be,  perhaps,  did  himself  injustice,  from  his  recoil  from  the 
1  February  1,  1882. 


SIR   ROBERT   CHRISTISON.  E01 

opposite  excess.  "We  are  all  proud  of  the  noble  old 
man  (old  only  in  years),  with  his  erect  head,  his  rapid 
step,  his  air  of  command. 

Of  his  inner  character,  as  already  said,  he  made  no 
show,  but  it  might  be  divined  by  the  discerning  mind, 
for  he  was  too  proud  and  too  sincere  to  conceal  anything. 

Till  the  last  four  weeks,  though  his  health  had  been 
somewhat  failing  for  two  years,  his  mental  faculties  re« 
mained  entire  and  alert.  His  voice  and  mind  were  as 
powerful  as  ever  when  he  spoke  at  the  meeting  with 
Lord  Rosebery  and  the  Lord  Advocate  on  the  Scottish 
Universities.  He  retained  to  the  last  his  love  of  Nature 
and  his  pursuit  of  her  glories  and  beauties,  happy  in 
proving  that  his  old  friend  Ben  Nevis  was  not  only  king 
of  the  Bens,  but  that  he  had  the  noblest  glen  and  the 
grandest  precipice  of  them  all.  May  we,  his  citizens, 
be  the  better  of  thinking  of  that  honorable,  full,  and 
well-spent  life,  —  manly,  gentlemanly,  upright,  true  to 
old  friends  and  faiths.  Non  cum  corpora  extinguuntur 
magnce  anima,  placide  quiescas  ! 

No  man  who  once  saw  Sir  Robert  Christison  could 
ever  mistake  him  for  any  one  else.  His  nature  was  ho- 
mogeneous, and  curiously  consistent.  As  a  physician, 
though  he  might  not  have  all  the  suavity  and  expressive 
kindliness  of  the  elder  and  younger  Begbies,  nor  the  — 
shall  we  call  it  ?  —  mesmeric  power  of  the  huge-brained 
and  anomalous  Simpson ;  nor  that  instant  fixture  of  re- 
liance which  Syme's  eyes,  more  even  than  his  words, 
gave  and  kept ;  nor  the  penetrating  look,  as  of  a  war- 
lock, of  Dr.  John  Scott,  he  had  much  of  the  best  that 
they  had  not  in  such  quantity  —  he  had  the  momentum 
of  a  strong,  clear,  well-knowledged  mind,  determined  on 


302  SIR  ROBERT   CHRISTISON. 

doing  its  best  for  his  patient's  good,  and  that  best  well 
worth  its  name,  and,  once  confided  in,  he  was  so  for- 
ever. To  have  such  a  command  of  all  known  drugs,  he 
was  singularly  simple  in  his  medicines  and  general  treat- 
ment. As  a  lecturer  he  was,  for  the  subjects  he  treated, 
we  may  say  perfect,  full  of  immediate  knowledge  as 
distinguished  from  mediate,  orderly  in  its  arrangement, 
lucid  in  its  exposition  rather,  perhaps,  than  luminous, 
for  it  did  not  need  that  —  strong  and  impressive  in  its 
application.  His  life-long  friend  Mr.  Syme  was  some- 
times more  luminous  than  lucid,  though  always  full  of 
power  over  the  thought  of  others,  quickening  it,  and 
making  what  he  said  unforgetable.  That  great,  amor- 
phous genius,  John  Goodsir,  was  often  largely  luminous 
and  sometimes  sparingly  lucid. 

In  his  experiments  Christison  was  exquisite  and  never 
failed,  unlike  his  excellent  and  gifted  predecessor,  Dr. 
Andrew  Duncan,  Junr.,  whom  some  of  us  elders  may 
remember  setting  agoing  a  process  at  the  beginning  of 
the  hour,  telling  us  (unluckily)  what  we  would  see,  and 
then  casting,  all  through  the  lecture,  furtive,  and  at  last 
desperate  and  almost  beseeching  glances  at  the  obdurate 
bottle,  till  at  the  close  he,  with  a  sad  smile,  said,  "  Gen- 
tlemen, the  failure  of  this  experiment  proves  more  than 
its  success  ! " 

The  bent  of  Christison's  mind  was  scientific  and  posi- 
tive rather  than  philosophic,  speculative,  or  presaging. 
He  was  more  occupied  with  what  is,  than  with  why  it  is, 
or  what  it  may  become,  and  in  this  region  he  did  his 
proper  work  excellently,  with  a  clear  decision  and  thor- 
oughness. 

He  had  the  natural  qualities  of  a  great  soldier,  and 
was  full  of  martial  ardor  and  sense.  He  has  some* 


SIR   ROBERT   CHRISTISON.  303 

times  been  called  distant  and  cold.  He  had  great  natural 
dignity,  and  was  not  of  an  effusive  turn,  being  warmer 
inside  than  out,  which  is  better  than  the  reverse ;  but 
that  he  had  tender  and  deep  feelings,  as  well  as  strong 
energy  and  will,  the  following  circumstances  may  well 
show.  It  refers  to  what,  if  said  in  his  lifetime,  would 
have  brought  a  flush  of  displeasure  on  that  noble  face. 
His  wife,  a  woman  of  great  beauty,  and  better,  was  in 
her  last  long  illness.  She  was  going  to  the  country  for 
a  month,  and  her  husband  heard  her  give  orders  that  a 
piece  of  worsted  work  which  she  had  finished  should  be 
grounded  and  made  up  as  an  ottoman,  and  ready  in  the 
drawing-room  on  her  return.  A  few  days  before  that, 
he  asked  if  it  was  completed ;  it  had  been  totally  for- 
gotten. He  said  nothing ;  but  getting  possession  of  the 
piece,  he  sat  up  for  two  or  three  nights  and  grounded  it 
with  his  own  hand,  had  it  made  up,  and  set  his  wife 
down  on  it,  as  she  wished.  Is  not  that  beautiful?  —  a 
true,  manly  tenderness,  worth  much  and  worth  remem- 
bering :  "  Out  of  the  strong  came  forth  sweetness."  His 
love  of  Nature,  from  her  flowers  to  h«r  precipices  and 
mountains,  and  his  pursuit  of  her  into  her  wildest  fast- 
nesses, "  haunted  him  like  a  passion,"  increasing  with 
his  years.  His  Highland  residences  during  the  latter 
part  of  his  life  gave  him  great  delight,  and  fed  his  in- 
trepid, keen,  searching  spirit.  He  never  saw  a  big 
mountain  but  he  heard  it,  as  it  were,  saying  to  him, 
"  Come  on  —  and  up ; "  and  on  and  up  he  went,  scaling 
the  tragic  Cobbler  and  many  else.  He  had  a  genius  for 
nice  handiwork,  and  took  pains  with  everything  he  did. 
The  beauty  and  minuteness  of  his  penmanship  we  all 
know ;  he  might,  as  Thackery  said  of  himself,  have 


304  CIB   ROBERT   CHRISTISOX. 

turned  an  honest  penny  by  writing  the   Lord's  Prayer 
on  the  size  of  a  sixpence. 

But  we  must  end,  though  half  has  not  been  said.  "We, 
his  old  friends,  can  never  forget  him,  or  hope  ever  to  see 
his  like  again. 


MISS  STIRLING   GRAHAM 
OF  DUNTRUNE. 


I  played  with  the  bairnies  at  bowls  and  at  ba't 
And  left  them  a'  greeting  when  I  cam'  awa?  / 
Ay  I  mil/ters  and  bairnies,  and  lassies  and  a', 
Were  a'  sobbin'  loudly  when  I  cam?  awa'. 

20 


MISS  STIRLING  GRAHAM  OF  DUNTRUNE. 

HIS  gifted,  excellent,  and  most  delightful  old 
lady,  the  perfect  type  of  a  Scottish  gentle- 
woman, died  yesterday  afternoon,  23d  August 
1877,  at  her  beautiful  seat  Duntrune,  in  Forfarshire, 
above  BroughLy  Ferry,  overlooking  the  Ta,y,  with  the 
woods  of  Ballumbie  on  one  side,  and  those  of  Linlathen, 
her  dear  friend  Mr.  Erskine's  estate,  on  the  other,  and 
with  St.  Andrews  and  the  noble  tower  of  St.  Rule 
standing  out  clear  on  the  sky  line  to  the  south.  Miss 
Graham  was  in  her  ninety-sixth  year,  having  been  born 
in  1782.  Her  father,  Patrick  Stirling  of  Pitteudreich, 
in  the  county  of  Forfar,  and  a  much  esteemed  merchant 
in  Dundee,  married  the  heiress  of  Duntrune,  and  Miss 
Graham,  the  eldest  of  two  daughters,  a  brother  having 
predeceased  her,  inherited  the  property.  The  other 
daughter  was  the  wife  of  Colonel  Lacon,  and  to  her 
daughters'  unfailing  love  Miss  Graham  owed  much  of 
the  best  happiness  of  her  life.  Her  birthplace  was  an 
old  house  in  a  narrow  back  lane,  leading  off  the  main 
thoroughfare  of  Dundee,  which  is  still,  we  believe, 
pointed  out  to  strangers  as  the  place  where  the  au- 
thoress of  the  Mystifications *  first  saw  the  light.  Her 
life  may  almost  be  said  to  have  been  one  long  summer 
day,  not  without  its  clouds,  but  on  the  whole  happy, 
delightful,  and  beneficent  in  no  ordinary  degree.  Few 

1  See  the  paper  on  Mystifications  in  the  first  series  of  Spare  Hours. 


308  MISS   STIRLING   GRAHAM. 

have  left  the  world  so  regarded  with  immediate,  un- 
mixed, and  deserved  affection,  and  fewer  still  have  re- 
tained to  the  last,  as  she  did,  the  pure,  fresh,  unblunted 
attachments  of  childhood  to  their  friends.  Dying  at 
ninety-five,  she  was  as  gay  and  truthful  and  artless  as  a 
girl,  with  all  the  serious  and  "  thoughtful  breath "  that 
becomes  a  "  traveller  between  life  and  death." 

Always  full  of  benevolence  and  public  spirit,  one  of 
the  earliest  manifestations  of  this  was  some  time  ago 
amusingly  told  by  an  old  Forfarshire  farmer,  whom  a 
friend  of  ours  happened  to  fall  in  with  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Dundee.  When  Dr.  Jenner's  great  discovery 
was  first  announced  it  immediately  attracted  Miss  Gra- 
ham's interest  and  enthusiasm,  and  long  before  the  Fac- 
ulty became  alive  to  its  importance  she  used  to  ride 
about  on  her  little  white  pony  vaccinating  with  a  needle 
every  child  whose  birth  she  heard  of  in  her  neighbor- 
hood. We  have  been  told  that  in  this  way  she  protected 
from  a  terrible  scourge  of  the  smallpox  not  less  than 
about  300  infants.  Our  farmer  friend  had  been  one  of 
her  early  patients.  So  carefully  was  it  done  that  it  used 
to  be  said  that  none  of  those  operated  on  by  Miss  Graham 
ever  took  smallpox. 

In  public  affairs  it  was  the  same  thing  —  always  on 
the  side  of  the  right  and  the  true.  She  was  a  life-long 
Liberal  —  liberal  in  all  the  senses  of  the  word.  Though 
intimate  with  Sir  Walter  Scott,  who  has  recorded  his  ad- 
miration of  her  in  one  of  his  diaries,  she  consorted  mainly 
with  the  men  of  the  Edinburgh  Review.  Jeffrey,  Syd- 
ney Smith,  Gillies,  Cockburn,  Eutherfurd,  Murray,  and 
all  that  great  race  whom  we  had  and  have  not,  were 
among  her  friends.  It  was  to  her  that  Sydney  Smith 
made  that  famous  joke,  of  the  day  being  so  hot  that  "  he 


MISS   STIRLING  GRAHAM.  309 

wished  he  could  put  off  his  flesh  and  sit  in  his  bones, 
and  let  the  wind  whistle  through  them."  In  her  own 
county,  where  everybody  knew  her  and  she  knew  every- 
body and  who  their  forebears  were,  she  will  be  long 
remembered.  The  love  of  the  people  for  her  and  their 
pride  in  her  were  wonderful.  Those  who  were  nearest 
to  her  —  the  inmates  of  her  household,  her  servants,  her 
dependents,  her  tenants  —  cherished  for  her  something 
like  adoration  —  she  was  so  tender-hearted,  and,  inter- 
ested in  all  their  interests,  so  steadfast  a  friend.  So 
modest  was  she,  so  just  in  her  sense  of  herself,  that 
every  one  was  at  ease  with  her,  and  felt  that  whatever 
she  did  and  said  and  felt  was  as  real  as  the  material  ob- 
jects about  them.  'She  was  always  being  and  doing  good 
in  multitudes  of  unseen  ways. 

To  her  intimate  friends,  it  is  not  for  us  to  say  what 
she  was  and  what  her  loss  is.  But  even  to  the  outside 
public  she  is  endeared  by  her  marvellous  Mystifications, 
which,  as  far  as  we  know,  are  quite  unique  in  literature. 
We  have  all  heard  how,  in  the  pleasantest  and  most 
thorough  way,  she  "  took  in "  Jeffrey,  Sir  Walter,  Sir 
Daniel  Sandford,  William  Clerk,  Count  Flahault,  and 
everybody  ;  how  with  a  fine  faculty  for  satire  she  never 
pained ;  with  so  much  sense  she  was  never  dull ;  with  so 
much  wit  and  pleasantry  she  was  never  excessive  in  any 
way ;  for  her  nature  was  based  on  love  and  goodness. 
Who  among  us  does  not  remember  —  though  we  have 
hardly  the  heart  now  to  think  of  them  —  the  wonderful 
interview  at  92  George  Street  between  Jeffrey  and  the 
Lady  Pitlyal  —  the  "  pykin  "  of  the  king's  teeth  and  the 
royal  patent  of  "  weel  pykit,"  the  stiff  clay  land  that 
"grat  a'  winter  and  girned  a'  simmer,"  which  threw  Dr. 
Coventry,  the  agricultural  professor,  into  convulsions  of 


310  MISS   STIRLING  GRAHAM. 

delight  ?  It  was  a  singular  gift.  Meet  Miss  Graham 
in  company  and  you  found  her  quiet,  unpretending,  sen- 
sible, shrewd,  kindly  —  perhaps  you  did  not  remark 
anything  extraordinary  in  her.  But  let  her  put  on  the 
old  lady,  and  immediately  it  was  as  if  a  warlock's  spell 
had  passed  over  her.  Not  merely  her  look  but  her  na- 
ture was  changed.  Her  spirit  had  passed  into  the  char- 
acter she  represented,  and  jest,  quick  retort,  whimsical 
fancy,  the  wildest  humor  flowed  from  her  lips  with  a 
freedom  and  truth  to  nature  which  would  have  been 
impossible  in  her  own  personality.  The  Mystification* 
were  at  first  privately  printed,  and  it  was  with  some 
difficulty  she  was  prevailed  on  to  give  them  to  the  pub- 
lic. They  soon  passed  here  and  in  America  into  perma- 
nent favorites.  Miss  Graham  also  published  in  1829 
The  Bee  Book,  a  translation  of  M.  de  Gelieu's  work 
and  fifty  years  afterwards  she  republished  it,  to  the 
great  benefit  of  all  bee-keepers. 

She  retained'to  the  last  all  her  faculties  and  affections 
—  her  memory,  her  humor,  her  interest  in  life,  her  tender 
fidelity  to  friends,  her  love,  we  might  almost  say  her 
happy-heartedness,  passion  for  nature  and  all  things  fair. 
One  little  scene  of  her  early  life  we  like  to  recall.  She 
and  her  next  neighbor,  the  late  Mr.  Erskine  of  Lin- 
lathen,  were  always  great  friends,  and  some  now  alive, 
we  believe,  can  still  remember  seeing  them  occasionally 
riding  out  together  —  the  two  so  like  in  some  respects, 
and  so  unlike  —  II  Peuseroso  and  L' Allegro  —  he  dis- 
coursing doubtless  even  then,  in  those  young  days,  of 
"righteousness,"  and  she  listening,  but  with  her  eyes 
wide  awake  the  while,  to  the  outward  nature  which  she 
loved  so  well,  and  with  a  keen  and  kindly  look  to  the 
country  folk  who  passed  them  on  the  road. 


MISS   STIRLING  GRAHAM.  311 

Until  the  last  few  years  Miss  Graham  used  to  spend 
her  winters  in  Edinburgh,  and  her  modest  house  in 
Forth  Street  (No.  29),  with  its  bright  happy  evenings, 
of  which  she  was  the  heart  and  life,  can  never  be  for- 
gotten by  those  who  survive  them.  With  her  have 
perished  a  thousand  memories  of  old  Edinburgh  and 
Forfarshire  society.  Some  of  these  are  added  as  an  ap- 
pendix to  the  last  edition  of  the  Mystifications;  but 
they  want,  of  course,  the  life  and  spirit  which,  when 
telling  them  to  her  friends,  she  used  to  put  into  many  a 
happy  story  of  these  old  times. 

To  those  who  know  the  Mystifications  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  that  she  possessed  a  true  literary  fac- 
ulty. The  writing  is  always  clear,  simple,  unaffected, 
and  in  perfect  taste.  With  all  her  sense  of  humor  there 
was  an  underlying  seriousness  in  her  character;  very 
touching  and  tender,  for  instance,  are  the  dedication  of 
Mystifications  to  Mrs.  Gillies,  and  the  lines  with  which 
she  concludes.  "  Few,"  she  says,  writing  in  Decem- 
ber 1868,  "  are  now  alive  who  shared  or  assisted  in 
these  joyous  scenes,  and  the  Mystifier,  at  an  advanced 
age,  waits  in  humble  reliance  the  certainty  of  her  sum- 
mons." 

"Blessed  shades  of  the  past, 
In  the  future  I  see  ye,  so  fair ! 

Ties  that  were  nearest, 

Forms  that  were  dearest, 
The  truest  and  fondest  are  there. 

"  They  are  flowerets  of  earth, 
That  are  blooming  in  heaven,  so  fair! 

And  the  stately  tree, 

Spreading  wide  and  free, 
The  sheaves  that  were  ripened  are  there. 


312  MISS   STIRLING   GRAHAM. 

"The  tear-drop  that  trembled 
In  Pity's  meek  eye  ;  and  the  prayer, 

Faith  of  the  purest, 

Hope  that  was  surest, 
The  love  all-enduring  are  there. 

"  And  the  loved,  the  beloved, 
Whose  life  made  existence  so  fair! 
The  soft  seraph  voice 
Bade  the  lowly  rejoice, 
Is  heard  in  sweet  harmony  there.'* 


SIB  E.  LANDSEERS  PICTURE 

« THERE  'S  LIFE  IN  THE  OLD  DOG   JET.» 
ETC.,  ETC. 


SIR  E.  LANDSEER'S   PICTURE 

"  THEKE  'S  LIFE  IN  THE  OLD  DOG  YET." 
1851. 

E  have  had  several  of  Landseer's*  best  pictures 
lately,  but  we  are  not  likely  soon  to  cry,  "Hold, 
enough ! "  The  natural  eye  and  heart  is  not 
easily  wearied  by  Nature  and  her  true  interpreters,  be 
they  poets,  philosophers,  or  painters ;  the  great  point  is 
to  get  Nature,  and  then  render  her  aright.  It  is,  by  the 
way,  a  new  element  in  the  fine  arts,  this  setting  famous 
pictures  on  their  travels,  and  is  on  the  whole  a  good  one. 
We  cheerfully  adopt  the  peripatetic  or  to-and-fro  doc- 
trine thus  far.  A  brisk  circulation  is  the  great  thing  in 
the  body,  natural,  social,  and  commercial,  —  keep  things 
going,  large  and  quick  returns  ;  and  it  is  one  proof  of  a 
higher  organization,  or,  to  use  the  cant  phrase,  "develop- 
ment "  of  the  body  politic,  as  it  is  of  the  individual  ani- 
mal, when  there  is  a  heart,  and  when  it  sends  its  life 
giving  stream  swiftly  round.  Caterpillars,  and  dead, 
degraded,  and  somnolent  nations  have  a  local  half-and- 
half  sort  of  circulation,  they  want  the  one  grand  central 
organ  ;  but  lest  our  readers  should  mistake  us,  we  don't 
think  this  organ  in  our  body  politic  is  London,  though 
Wordsworth  calls  it  this  "  mighty  heart,"  —  it  is  the 
grand  amount  of  the  intelligence,  refinement,  and  good- 
ness of  the  whole  people.  We  therefore  do  not  despair 


316  SIR  E.  LAXDSEER'S  PICTURE. 

of  having  a  visit  of  the  Venus  de  Medici  or  of  the  Dy- 
ing Gladiator,  or  oven  the  entire  Tribune  of  Florence, 
with  its  riches  ;  and  getting  tickets  from  Mr.  Hill  or  Mr. 
Crichton,  that  they  are  on  view,  and  thus  seeing  in  our 
own  "  Auld  Reekie  "  what  has  so  long  "  entranced  the 
world."  This  picture  of  Sir  Edwin's  is  remarkable  in 
several  respects :  it  is  very  large  ;  it  is  twenty  years  old  ; 
it  gives  us  a  curious  means  of  judging  of  his  young  and 
his  present  style,  and  seeing  how  he  is  the  same  and  yet 
different ;  it  has  the  grand  English  qualification  of  being 
worth  £5000,  or  £200  a  year  at  4  per  cent. ;  and  best 
of  all,  it  is  a  truly  great  and  honest  picture.  By  hon- 
est, we  mean  that  the  painter  does  his  part  in  truth  and 
honor,  no  blinking  of  difficulties,  no  filling  up  out  of  the 
lumber-room  of  other  people's  odds  and  ends,  called  his 
imagination  ;  his  is  the  truthful  loving  study  of  nature. 
This  picture  bears  this  out  in  every  part,  and  it  is  worth 
remarking  that  being  of  so  large  a  size,  he  had  the 
ready  temptation  to  "generalize"  and  paint  for  effect. 
But  he  loved  nature  and  honesty  and  himself  too  well  to 
do  this,  and  he  has  had  his  reward.  Look  at  his  last 
picture  at  Mr.  Hill's,  the  "  Random  Shot,"  that  dead 
mother  and  her  suckling  calf,  on  the  cold  mountain-top, 
and  you  will  see  the  recompense  of  true  work  at  the  be- 
ginning of  life  and  of  art.  There  he  has  reached  the 
domain  of  the  "  shaping  spirit  of  imagination  ;  "  he  has 
got  the  flower  in  summer  because  he  planted  the  seed  in 
spring,  and  cherished  the  plant. 

We  will  not  describe  this  picture ;  it  does  that  for 
itself.  The  entire  "  scene "  strikes  us  as  wonderfully 
real.  That  wild  place,  out  of  the  reach  probably  for 
ages  of  anything  but  a  bird,  a  moonbeam,  or  a  lightning 
stroke,  is  filled  at  once  to  our  eyes  with  the  interest  of 


SIR  E.  LANDSEEB'S  PICTURE.  317 

death,  life,  human  sympathy,  and  the  grandeur  of  na- 
ture. You  hear  the  gruff  honest  fellow,  with  his  hand- 
some face,  his  iron-gray  hair,  wet  with  exertion,  and  his 
speaking  hand,1  shouting  out  (in  Gaelic  from  his  mouth, 
and  in  the  universal  language  from  his  eyes),  "  There  's 
life  in  the  old  Dog  yet,"  and  you  know  by  his  curved 
lip,  his  loud  look,  his  anxious  eye,  and  trumpet  hand, 
how  far  above  him  is  his  audience,  and  the  thorough-bred 
deerhound,  happy  and  contented  even  in  its  suffering,  for 
he  has  got  his  gentle  head  on  the  breast  of  his  master, 
who  is  his  god.  Let  our  readers  mark  the  blush  of  its 
skin  through  the  hair,  as  indicating  the  fierce  race,  and 
how  its  tail  is  drawn  in  by  pain  and  terror ;  but  there  is 
no  end  of  admiring.  It  is  humanely  and  beautifully 
managed,  that  the  other  two  are  quite  dead  and  at  rest; 
it  is  a  true  touch  of  nature  to  leave  the  light  springing 
deerhound  alone  alive  of  the  three.  We  need  hardly 
speak  of  the  miraculous  antlers. 

Of  course  we  know,  by  an  act  of  our  understanding, 
that  in  Mr.  Critchton's  room,  in  the  heart  of  Edinburgh, 
and  within  that  gilded  frame,  they  must  be  "  painted  " 
horns;  but  who  does  not  "feel"  them  to  be  veritable 
hartshorn  ?  The  color  of  the  whole  is  deep  and  rich,  per- 
haps a  little  too  rich  in  the  figures ;  but  it  is  finely  har- 
monized. The  management  of  the  "  reds  "  is  a  study 
to  artists.  The  great  subdued  mass  on  the  plaid,  the 
smaller  on  the  tartan  stockings,  the  dead  dog's  open 
mouth  and  gums,  the  stag's  tongue,  and  the  small,  in- 
tense, living  tongue  of  the  deerhound,  the  stony,  obdu- 
rate look  of  the  granite  blocks,  the  wild  confusion  and 
the  verdure,  those  soothing  bits  of  nature's  life-giving 
touch,  working  her  will  sweetly  in  the  midst  of  desola 
tion,  the  receding  distance,  with  its  mists  and  ghostly 


318  SIR  E.  LAXDSEER'S  PICTURE. 

waterfalls,  giving  to  the  ear  the  idea  of  continual,  vague 
murmuring,  the  rack  of  clouds  drifting  across,  —  the 
rope  telling  the  story,  —  all  this  who  else  could  do  so 
well  ?  It  is  a  great  beauty  in  Landseer,  as  it  is  in  Ru- 
bens, that  landscape,  dogs,  men,  flowers,  everything  is 
"  his  own,"  seen  with  his  own  eye,  rendered  by  his  own 
hand.  It  would  be  well  that  our  young  dashing  artists, 
who  are  for  bold-handling  execution,  would  take  a  les- 
son from  this  picture. 

Landseer  must  have  been  young  when  he  painted 
this,  and  yet  how  "  conscientious "  (we  say  this  seri- 
ously) the  whole  performance,  how  thoroughly  honest, 
and  paid  in  full.  Let  our  young  friends  take  a  note  of 
this.  The  only  thing  in  this  picture  left  to  what  some 
of  them  would  call  their  fancy,  is  wrong.  It  is  the  twist 
of  the  double  rope ;  the  twist  is  going  the  same  way  in 
the  up  and  down  rope. 

The  etching  by  Ryall  is  first-rate  ;  it  looks  like  an 
original  sketch  by  the  artist  himself,  so  bold  and  free 
and  subtle  his  handling,  so  up  to  the  full  idea. 

We  would  despair  of  him  making  the  remaining  work 
equal  had  we  not  before  us  his  Columbus,  by  Wilkie. 
We  can  most  cordially  recommend  this  engraving.  There 
is  a  common,  and,  we  may  be  allowed  to  call  it,  a  some- 
what vulgar  and  "  lassieish "  objection  to  Landseer's 
subjects,  that  they  are  painful,  as  in  the  case  of  such 
representations  as  those  of  the  "  Otter  Hunt,"  where 
that  indomitable  wretch,  "game"  to  the  last,  is  held  up 
transfixed  and  writhing  under  the  adoring  and  praying 
tyes,  and  shaggy  muzzles  and  legs,  of  up-looking  little 
sturdy  ruffians,  the  terriers  and  otter  hounds,  there  is 
too  much  that  is  painful ;  but  in  such  a  picture  as  this  of 
the  "  Old  Dog  "  we  think  the  prevailing  feeling  is,  and 


HALLE'S  RECITAL.  319 

should  be,  pleasurable,  and  that  humane  and  hearty 
sympathy  which  is  one  of  the  best  results  of  painting, 
or  of  anything  else. 

Young  ladies  of  a  tender  turn,  and  who  weep  their 
fine  eyes  and  handkerchiefs  ugly  and  sad  with  sympa- 
thetic tears  for  distressed  lovers  —  in  a  book  (they  do 
very  different  when  they  meet  them  in  real  life,  except 
they  be  themselves  in  the  case) — would  say  on  seeing 
this  picture,  Oh !  shocking !  What  a  horrid  sight ! 
Blood  and  tongues  !  What  a  horrid  man  Landseer  must 
be !  Let  us  analyze  the  dear  creature's  horror.  It  is 
her  own  pain  chiefly  that  is  horrid,  it  is  not  her  feeling 
for  the  animals.  It  is  the  same  sort  of  dislike  to  the 
sight  that  a  bad  smell  causes  to  the  nose ;  it  has  little 
better  in  it  than  this.  A  moderate  measure  of  pain,  — 
a  real  moral  sympathy  with  the  lower  animals,  and  a 
feeling  of  uneasiness  on  account  of  their  sufferings,  —  a 
going-out  towards  them,  to  love  and  be  good  to  them,  is 
a  useful  lesson  for  us  all.  Art  is  not  a  mere  toy  to  be 
joked  with  and  laughed  at,  — it  is  a  deep  and  too  little 
read  passage  in  the  nature  and  in  the  mind  of  man,  and 
with  all  reverence,  it  is  one  of  the  true  manifestations 
of  Him  who  made,  and  governs,  and  blesses  us  all. 


HALLE'S   RECITAL. 

January  SO,  1863. 

IF  it  be  a  great  pleasure  to  see  others  pleased,  and  a 
greater  to  be  the  pleaser,  then  must  this  gifted  and  ac- 
complished artist  have  been  very  happy  during  his  two 
hours  on  Saturday  afternoon.  Here  was  he,  all  by  him- 
self, sitting  down  at  his  piano,  as  if  he  were  at  his  owe 


320  HALLE'S  RECITAL. 

fireside,  and  having  his  "  At  Home  "  with  some  fifteen 
hundred  happy  people,  to  each  one  of  whom  the  hours 
seemed  all  too  short. 

"We  seldom  see,  or  rather  feel  (for  we  were  all  so 
much  engaged  that  there  was  little  seeing  and  less  look- 
ing, even  the  perennial  cough  was  checked,  to  the  near 
suffocation  of  some  self-sacrificing  people  whom  we 
heard  in  by-corners  tampering  with  apoplexy  and  as- 
phyxia), so  many  people  having  so  much  of  the  same 
enjoyment  all  at  once,  and  yet  each  ear  making  its  own 
of  all  it  heard,  telling  its  own  secret  story  to  itself. 

What  it  was  to  see  Taglioni  make  music  to  the  eye, 
gliding  about  like  a  shadow,  or  bounding  like  a  pard,  or 
merely  walking ;  or  to  see  Ducrow  in  his  "  Dumb  Man 
of  Manchester,"  making  his  every  action  speak ;  what 
it  was  to  hear  Grisi  sing,  or  William  Murray  or  his  sis- 
ter act  —  the  same  quiet  mastery  of  expression,  the  same 
perfection  of  feeling  and  making  to  feel,  the  same 
power  of  making  little  into  much,  and  much  into  more ; 
so  it  is  to  come  under  the  charm  of  this  pure,  consum- 
mate musician.  You  think  of  him  at  first  simply  as  the 
cause  of  what  he  achieves ;  you  find  yourself  as  little 
.  hinking  of  him  —  of  the  means  of  what  is  to  you  the 
pleasant  end  —  as  he  himself  plainly  is  —  each,  giver 
and  receivers,  are  taken  up  with  the  idea  and  its  expres- 
sion, he  giving  it  out,  they  taking  it  in ;  or  rather  it  is 
so  perfectly  expressed  that  you  reach  it  as  it  were  im- 
mediately, and  get  to  its  life  and  soul  at  once,  and 
straight.  Much  of  this  arises  from  his  quiet,  simple, 
sensible  face  and  manner.  He  knows  that  he  is  a  means 
to  an  end — not  an  end  in  himself,  as  too  many  of  our 
performers  are,  —  and  he  gets  the  best  reward  in  being 
ultimately  himself  an  end  as  well,  and  all  the  better. 


HALLE'S  RECITAL.  321 

Y"ou  think  him  not  the  less  clever,  not  the  less  executive, 
brilliant,  subtle,  penetrating,  delicate,  firm,  and  up  to 
"impossible  passages," — in  a  word,  not  the  less  expres- 
sive, that  he  never  says  to  you,  "  Now,  listen,  how 
clever,  how  delicious,  how  miraculous  I  am !  "  And  it 
is  this  possession  of  his  theme,  and  his  self-possession  in 
the  best  sense,  that  makes  one  great  secret  of  his  play- 
ing ;  it  is  not  less  unaffected  and  to  the  point  (only  much 
more  delightful)  than  the  talk  of  your  man  of  business. 
Then  think  of  the  rest  and  satisfying  play  of  the  mind, 
of  the  diversion  in  its  true  meaning,  of  the  many  jaded 
minds,  and  heavy  and  weary  hearts,  and  it  may  be  vexed 
ears,  of  our  busy  men  and  women.  Music  can  soothe 
other  than  savage  beasts  ;  and  next  to  active  exercise  — 
to  a  ride  across  the  Pentlands  or  a  walk  across  Corstor- 
phine  Hill,  and  in  some  deeper  and  gentler  ways,  better 
even  than  these,  though  both  are  best  —  is  the  passing 
two  hours  of  a  Saturday,  after  the  week's  toil  and 
worry,  its  wear  and  tear,  in  hearing  pure  good  master- 
pieces purely  expressed.  We  are  all  the  better  of 
heartily  admiring  the  same  thing,  the  same  thought,  and 
the  same  giver  or  transmitter  of  the  thought.  There- 
fore' it  is  that  we  miss  the  old  Saturday  subscription  con- 
certs, where  the  great  classics  were  worthily  rendered. 
Who  can  forget  Mozart's  "  Jupiter,"  or  the  overture  to 
"  Der  Freischiitz,"  or  the  delicious,  innocent,  Elysian 
"  Surprise  "  of  Haydn  —  as  if  it  had  wandered  out  of 
Paradise ;  or  the  many-voiced  sonatas  of  Beethoven  — 
leep,  mobile,  unfathomable,  melancholy  as  the  sea ; 
or  the  quartettes  with  violins  and  violoncello,  rising 
each  above  the  other  like  larks  singing  at  "  Heaven's 
gate,"  or  like  transcendental  nightingales  in  a  sweet 
strife  — 

21 


322  HALLE'S  RECITAL. 

11  That  crowds,  and  hurries,  and  precipitates 
With  fast  thick  warble  [their]  delicious  notes. 

They  answer  and  provoke  each  other's  song, 
With  skirmish  and  capricious  passagings, 
And  murmurs  musical  and  swift  jug  jug, 
And  one  low  piping  sound  more  sweet  than  all." 

Why  should  not  we  have  these  pleasures  back  again  ? 
I  dare  say  we  might  if  we  all  asked  them  loud  enough. 

Beethoven's  "  Grand  Sonata  in  D"  was  the  first  and 
largest  recital ;  and  is  it  not  a  great  achievement  this 
sitting  down  without  anything  but  memory,  and  what  a 
memory  !  his  fingers,  and  his  genius,  his  tact  and  taste, 
and,  for  anything  we  see,  telling  us  his  own  present 
Presto  and  Largo  e  Mesto,  his  special  at  the  moment 
Minuetto  Allegro  and  his  last  Rondo  Allegro  —  taking  us 
into  his  confidence,  and  getting  ours  for  the  asking.  As 
is  often  the  case,  we  speak  in  profoundest  ignorance  of 
the  science  or  the  art  beyond  being  the  delighted  sub- 
jects of  their  emotional  effects.  Beethoven  begins  with 
a  trouble,  a  wandering  and  groping  in  the  dark,  a  strange 
emergence  of  order  out  of  chaos,  a  wild  rich  confusion 
and  misrule.  Wilful  and  passionate,  often  harsh,  and  as 
it  were  thick  with  gloom ;  then  comes  as  if  "  it  stole 
upon  the  air,"  the  burden  of  the  theme,  the  still  sad 
music — Largo  e,  Mesto  —  so  human,  so  sorrowful,  and 
yet  the  sorrow  overcome,  not  by  gladness  but  by  some- 
vhing  better,  like  the  sea  after  a  dark  night  of  tempest 
ialling  asleep  in  the  young  light  of  morning,  and  "  whis- 
pering how  meek  and  gentle  it  can  be." 

This  likeness  to  the  sea,  its  immensity,  its  uncertainty, 
its  wild  strong  glory  and  play,  its  peace,  its  solitude,  its 
unsearchableness,  its  prevailing  sadness,  comes  more 
into  our  minds  with  this  great  and  deep  master's  works 


HALLE'S   RECITAL.  323 

than  with  any  other.  If  we  think  of  Handel,  his  u 
"  the  sea  of  glass,"  and  the  overarching  "  body  of  heaven 
in  its  clearness,"  the  "  harpers  harping  on  their  harps," 
the  far-off  "  sound  of  many  waters,"  echoing  to  "  the  ut- 
most bounds  of  the  everlasting  hills,"  "  the  voice  of  a 
great  multitude  and  of  many  thunderings,"  the  "  seven- 
fold chorus  of  hallelujahs  and  harping  symphonies," 
"  the  throne  and  equipage  of  God's  Almightiness."  But 
it  seems  to  us  that  with  the  restless,  capacious,  unsatis- 
fied and  satisfying  German,  —  so  full  of  passion  and 
tenderness,  so  full  of  the  utterance  of 

"  The  still,  sad  music  of  humanity," 

the  sea,  we  all  know,  and  love,  and  fear  is  the  likely 
symbol. 

Sebastian  Bach's  perfect  Gavotte  and  Musette  were 
given  to  perfection,  his  purity,  his  crystalline  depth,  his 
inveteracy,  his  working  out  absolutely  and  exquisitely 
his  germinal  idea,  —  nothing  could  be  better.  Somehow 
we  did  not  much  care  for,  and  do  not  much  remember 
Mendelssohn's  "  Presto  Scherzando ; "  it  was  too  fanci- 
ful, too  soon,  shall  we  say,  after  the  great  old  Sebastian  ? 
but  we  confess  to  not  always  liking,  and  sometimes  not 
taking  in,  the  main  purpose  of  his  music.  Doubtless, 
we  are  in  a  pitiful  minority  as  to  this.  Compared  with 
the  greatest  masters,  we  feel  him  at  times  difficult,  ca- 
pricious, and  thin.  Weber's  "  Invitation  a  la  Valse  "  was 
—  as  everybody's  heart  and  feet,  especially  the  young 
ones'  feet,  beat  time  to  it  in  their  minds  —  simply  de 
licious  from  beginning  to  end.  We  confess  to  having 
been  quite  beside  ourselves,  indeed  finding  ourselves 
away  altogether ;  and  in  the  full  blaze  of  one  of  those 
ball-rooms  which  we  can  all  dance  our  fill  in,  and  choose 
our  partners,  and  get  no  mischief  —  and  behold  !  — 


824  HALLE'S  RECITAL. 

"Yestreen  when  to  the  stented  string 
The  dance  gaed  through  the  lichted  ha'." 

We  saw  with  our  own  eyes  that  splendid  young  fellow 
—  a  prince  of  course  —  with  his  dark  hair  and  eyes, 
with  that  well-known  glow  in  them  finding  her  out  at 
once  in  that  shadowy  recess,  where  her  mother  had  left 
her  for  a  moment,  there  he  is  bending  down  and  asking 
her  to  tread  a  measure.  Of  course,  he  was  Lochinvar, 
only  much  handsomer,  gentler,  altogether  an  unspeak- 
ahler  heing  than  that  hasty  young  reiver  who  was  so 
hard  hunted  across  Cannobie-lee.  She  — 

"  Her  eyes  like  stars  of  twilight  fair, 
Like  twilight,  too,  her  dusky  hair ; 
But  all  things  else  about  her  drawn 
From  Maytime  and  the  cheerful  dawn,"  — 

looks  still  more  down,  flushes  doubtless,  and  quietly,  in 
the  shadow,  —  says  "  No  "  and  -means  "  Yes,"  —  says 
"Yes"  and  fully  means  it,  and  they  are  off!  All  this 
small  whispered  love-making  and  dainty  device,  this 
coaxing  and  being  coaxed,  is  in  the  (all  too  short  for  us, 
but  not  for  them)  prelude  to  the  waltz,  the  real  business 
of  the  piece  and  evening.  And  then  such  a  waltz  for 
waltzing  !  Such  precision  and  decision  !  whisking  them 
round,  moulding  them  into  twin  orbs,  hurrying  them 
past  and  away  from  everything  and  everyone  but  them- 
selves. Now  they  all  but  disappear,  and  are  far  away, 
almost  out  of  sight  and  hearing,  round  they  come !  here 
again !  happier  than  ever,  he  firmer,  perfecter,  abler, 
she  playing  with  those  little  feet  the  nicest  second  in  the 
world.  Well,  the  waltz  ends,  and  they  and  you  have 
their  fill,  and  they  sit  down  in  the  same  shadowy  nook, 
happy  and  out  of  breath,  and  begin  again  the  same 
M  murmurs  made  to  bless,"  only  lower,  more  serious  and 


HALLE'S  EECITAL.  825 

more  silent ;  and  for  our  parts  we  must  be  excused  for 
saying  that  we  have  good  reason  to  believe,  indeed  we 
must  believe  our  own  eyes,  that  in  this  interesting  case, 
the  business  adjourned  to  an  alcove  out  of  the  moon- 
light, the  sound  of  fountains  and  the  dancers  faintly 
heard,  and  our  two  young  individuals  sitting  with  excel- 
lent effect,  for  a  well-known  scene  in  Retzsch's  "  Song  of 
the  Bell,"  to  which  we  beg  to  refer  our  readers,  old  and 
young,  —  it  being  observed  that  the  "  parients  "  of  both 
parties  are  at  a  respectful  distance,  under  an  old  arbo» 
d'amore,  such  as  we  have  seen  in  the  Royal  Garden  at 
Aranjuez  a-blessing  of  the  young  people.  But  soberly, 
this  was  one  of  Mr.  Halle's  most  perfect  bits  of  art,  as 
it  is  one  of  the  most  perfect  flowers  of  the  genius  of  that 
"  marvellous  boy  "  who  perished  in  his  bloom  ;  it  is  full 
of  the  sweetness  and  the  sadness,  the  richness,  the  fresh 
blossoming  of  youth,  like  the  "  Eclogues  "  of  Collins, 
or  the  "  Endymion "  of  Keats,  the  "  first  crush  of  the 
grapes,"  the  "  odorous  breath  "  and  the  swift  vanishing 
of  the  "  sweet  hour  of  prime." 

Next  came  the  Allegro  con  molto  expressions,  and  the 
Allegretto  ma  non  troppo  e  Cantabile,  from  Beethoven's 
Sonata  in  E  minor.  This  piece,  especially  the  latter 
half,  which  was  cantabile  indeed,  is  the  one  which  lingers 
most  in  our  ear  and  mind ;  it  took  more  possession  of  us, 
—  was  to  us  "  more  moving  delicate,  and  full  of  life,"  — 
was  the  one  thing  we  would  more  have  rather  not  lost, 
than  any  of  the  others  ;  its  loveliness,  its  fulness,  its 
happiness,  its  heavenliness  can  only  be  told  by  itself.  It 
seemed  as  if  it  spoke  out  all  its  secret,  told  it  to  us  and 
to  itself  for  the  first  time,  innocently  as  a  child,  or  an 
angel,  "  still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cherubim ; "  or 
like  an  TEolian  harp  with  a  soul  and  a  will  and  pur 


326  HALLE'S  RECITAL. 

pose  of  its  own,  and  a  tune  which  it  made  the  vagrant 
winds  play  as  it  listed,  not  as  they.  It  had  the  un- 
expectedness, the  swells  as  of  music  from  a  far  country, 
come  and  gone,  of  that  witching  but  unsatisfying  in- 
strument. For,  unlike  it,  this  had  a  story  to  tell  with 
all  its  caprice  and  swift  changes,  and  was  not  a  mere 
wandering  voice,  bent  upon  nothing.  But  we  are  too 
hard  on  the  harps  that  we  used  long  ago  to  get  from 
Keswick,  and  which  we  pleased  ourselves  with  thinking 
sang  to  us  the  songs  of  "  Glaramara's  inmost  caves,"  not 
to  speak  of  a  stave  from  Scafell  and  the  Pikes,  and  a 
weird  sough  through  "  the  pining  umbrage  "  of  ''  those 
fraternal  Four  of  Borrowdale."  Do  you  remember  Cole- 
ridge's lines,  "  composed  at  Clevedou,  Somersetshire  ?  " 
when  sitting  with  his  "  pensive  Sara "  they  heard  "  the 
stilly  murmur  of  the  distant  sea  telling  of  silence;" 
and  then  came  the  music  of 

"  That  simplest  lute 

Placed  length-ways  in  the  clasping  casement,  hark  ! 
How  by  the  desultory  breeze  caressed, 
Like  some  coy  maid  half  yielding  to  her  lover, 
It  pours  such  sweet  upbraiding  as  must  needs 
Tempt  to  repeat  the  wrong  !     And  now,  its  strings 
Boldlier  swept,  the  long  sequacious  notes 
Over  delicious  surges  sink  and  rise  — 
Such  a  soft  floating  witchery  of  sound 
As  twilight  elfins  make  when  they  at  eve 
Voyage  on  gentle  gales  from  Fairyland, 
Where  melodies  round  honey-drooping  flowers, 
Footless  and  wild,  like  birds  of  paradise, 
Nor  pause,  nor  perch,  hovering  on  untamed  wing  I 
0  the  one  life  within  us  and  abroad, 
Which  meets  all  motion  and  becomes  its  soul, 
A  light  in  sound,  a  sound-like  power  in  light, 
Rhythm  in  all  thought  and  joyance  everywhere, 
Methinks,  it  should  have  been  impossible 
Not  to  love  all  things  in  a  world  so  filled  ; 
Where  the  breeze  warbles,  and  the  mute  still  air 
Is  Music  slumbering  on  her  instrument." 


HALLE'S  RECITAL.  327 

This  is  beautiful,  is  it  not  ?  But  we  prefer  Beetho- 
ven's harping  to  that  of  .^Eolus  ;  there  is  method  in  his 
madness ;  there  is  a  greatness  in  his  gentleness ;  it 
soothes  our  wild  discontents  and  regrets  ;  it  sings  them, 
like  blind  giants,  to  sleep,  like  Ariel  charming  Caliban, 
the  uncanny,  clumsy,  and  glum.  Field's  nocturne  in  E 
flat  was  pretty,  but  we  could  see  to  the  bottom,  and  we 
suspect  the  kindly  and  modest  reciter  brought  more  out 
of  it  than  Field  ever  put  in.  Heller's  "  Dans  les  Bois  " 
was  given  con  amore,  as  if  Heller  was  Halle's  brother ;  it 
is  original  without  being  odd,  and  we  can  wish  the  author 
few  better  pleasures  than  hearing  it  played  by  his  friend. 
The  pieces  from  Chopin  were  finely  chosen,  full  of  the 
subtlety,  the  quick  life,  the  intense  subjectivity  of  this 
supersubtle,  supersensitive,  great  and  odd  genius,  whom 
we  would  think  as  difficult  and  deserving  of  translation 
as  the  unique  Jean  Paul,  who  needs  a  language  for  him- 
self. 

This  over,  the  delighted  audience,  like  children  only 
half  full  of  pleasure,  and  asking  for  more,  could  not 
let  their  friend  go  without  another  last,  and  he  gave 
the  beautiful,  lively,  and  most  picturesque  "  Spinning 
Wheel,"  by  Heller,  the  young  maiden  singing  to  herself 

and  her  wheel. 

«• 

So  ended  this  enjoyable  concert,  and  so  ends  our 
rhapsody. 


328          BIGGAR   AND   THE   HOUSE    OF   FLEMING. 

BIGGAR  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  FLEMING.1 

March  12, 1863. 

WE  owe  some  amends  to  this  excellent  book  —  to  its 
sensible  and  genial  author  —  and  to  the  shrewd  and 
sturdy  auld-farrant  little  capital  of  the  Upper  Ward,  for 
having  been  so  long  in  noticing  "  Biggar  and  the  House 
of  Fleming." 

Biggar  deserved  a  book  to  herself,  and  has  now  got  it, 
and  a  good  and  a  big  one  too,  and  a  publisher  of  her 
own  —  a  book  written  not  like  an  article  for  a  gazetteer, 
in  the  dull,  plodding  style,  but  as  a  work  proper  to  it- 
self, and  having  at  the  same  time  reference  to  the  rest 
of  Scotland  and  its  history  mainly  as  "  adjacent,"  in  the 
sense  of  the  good  old  Greater  and  Lesser  Cumbray 
story.  To  Biggar  people,  Biggar  is  the  centre  of  the 
world ;  and  this  book  is  written  by  a  Biggar  man,  and 
mainly  for  those  who  are  or  have  been  "callants  "  there, 
and  to  whom  the  memories  of  the  Corse  Knows  and  of 
Daft  Jenny,  Johnny  Minto,  The  West  Raic,  Sow's  Well, 
and  the  Cadger's  Brig  are  sacred.  But  with  all  this  — 
with  the  local  coloring  strong  and  keen  —  the  book  is 
good  general  reading,  the  work  of  a  thinking,  judging, 
well-knowledged,  well-languaged  man,  who  could  write 
as  well  on  many  a  wider  subject.  It  is  not  a  book  to 
analyze ;  but  we  can  assure  our  readers  that,  though 
they  never  saw  Tinto,  Coulter,  Fell,  Cardon,  or  Bizzy- 
berry,  and  never  even  heard  the  ancient  joke,  that 

1  Biggar  and  the  House  of  Fleming  ;  an  account  of  the  Biggar  dis- 
trict, Archaeological,  Historical,  and  Biographical.  By  William  Hunter 
Biggar  :  David  Lockhart. 


BIGGAR  AND  THE   HOUSE   OF  FLEMING.         329 

"  London 's  big,  but  Biggar  's  bigger,"  they  will  find 
much  diversion,  and  not  a  little  instruction,  in  this  vol- 
ume, especially  under  the  chapters  "  Pre-historic  Re- 
mains," "  Biggar  a  Burgh  of  Barony,"  "  The  Romans 
in  the  Upper  Ward ; "  Its  Witches,  Vagrants,  and  Crimes  ; 
and,  not  the  least  curious,  "  The  Battle  of  Biggar,"  in 
which  the  question  is  ably  and  entertainingly  handled 
—  Was  Blind  Harry  right  in  asserting,  in  "  Ye  Actis 
and  Deidis  of  ye  illuster  and  vailyand  Campioun,  Shyr 
William  Wallace,  knicht  of  Elrisle,"  that  Sir  William 
and  his  friend,  Sir  John  Tin  to,  gave  battle  to  and  de- 
feated Edward  I.  and  Sir  Aylnier  de  Vallance,  to  east  of 
Biggar,  on  Guiklie's  Oxgait  and  the  Stanehead,  past 
which  runs  the  little  burn,  the  Red  Syke,  which,  of 
course,  all  Biggar,  past,  present,  and  to  come,  held, 
holds,  and  will  forever  hold,  to  be  proof  positive  of  the 
battle,  as  it  ran  of  blood  for  days  after?  But,  seriously, 
this  battle  of  Biggar  is  worthy  of  the  attention  of  these 
mighty  expiscators  and  exploders  of  myths,  Sir  George 
C.  Lewis,  and  our  own  inevitable  Burton.  Let  them 
clear  up  it  and  the  Wigtown  martyrs.  We  shall  now 
give  "  a  wheen  swatches  "  of  this  goodly  volume  :  — 

"GIEIN'  HIMSEL'  A  FLEG." 

John  Brown  the  fiddler,  full  of  genius  and  music,  and 
also  too  frequently  fou  in  the  other  sense,  playing  at  the 
fairs,  penny-weddings,  and  dancing-schools,  and  leading 
a  wild  throughother  life,  had  been  up  all  night  fiddling 
and  drinking  at  Broughton  fair.  He  had  seen  his  "  nee- 
bors  "  all  asleep,  or  prostrate,  and  betook  himself  in  the 
cool,  sober  light  of  the  morning,  to  the  road.  He  was 
seized  when  near  Heavyside,  with  sudden  qualms  in  the 


330         BIGGAR  AND   THE  HOUSE   OF   FLEMING. 

interior,  and  thought  his  end  was  come.  Being  a  Cal- 
vinist  as  well  as  a  fiddler  and  toper,  he  had  sundry  aw- 
ful reflections  on  this  subject ;  and  to  indulge  them  more 
fully,  he  sat  down  at  the  roadside,  expecting  every  mo- 
ment the  final  summons.  After  waiting  and  wondering, 
John  got  up  with  much  alacrity,  saying,  "  If  I  maun 
dee,  I  may  as  well  dee  gaun  as  sittin',"  an$  made  victo- 
riously for  Biggar.  Here  is  a  good  bit  on  the  same 
drouthy  genius :  —  "  On  another  occasion,  after  indulg- 
ing in  a  round  of  rather  hard  drinking,  he  fell  into  the 
horrors.  He  viewed  his  conduct  with  anything  but  com- 
placency. He  considered  that  a  feeling  of  sorrow  and 
regret  was  not  a  sufficient  atonement  for  his  delinquen- 
cies, but  that  he  was  fairly  entitled  to  receive  some  per- 
sonal chastisement.  Laboring  under  this  impression,  he 
went  forthwith  to  the  late  Mr.  James  Paterson,  com- 
monly called  '  Oggie,'  from  having  lived  with  his  father 
on  the  farm  of  Oggscastle,  near  Carnwath.  Having 
found  him,  he  said,  'Jeames,  I  maun  hae  the  len  o'  a 
gun  frae  ye  this  morn  in' ;  I  'm  gaun  to  tak'  a  bit  daun- 
der  doon  the  length  o'  Bogha'  castle.'  'The  len  o'  a 
gun,  John  ! '  said  James  ;  '  that 's  strynge.  What  on 
earth  are  ye  gaun  to  dae  wi'  a  gun  ?  Ye  dinna  mean  to 
shute  yersel'  ? '  '  No  exactly  that,  Jeames,'  said  John, 
'  but  of  coorse  I  mean  to  gie  mysel'  a  deevil  o'  a  fleg.' " 

BIGGAR   AS   A    MEDICAL    SCHOOL. 

"  Biggar,  from  a  remote  period,  has  had  a  staff  of 
medical  men.  So  early  as  the  fourteenth  century,  men- 
tion is  made,  in  a  charter,  of  Simon  the  physician  of 
Biggar.  We  know  very  little  regarding  the  Biggar 
doctors,  however,  prior  to  the  beginning  of  last  century 


BIGGAR  AND  THE  HOUSE   OF  FLEMING.         331 

At  that  time  Andrew  Aikman  flourished  as  a  surgeon  in 
Biggar.  The  earliest  notice  that  we  have  of  him  is  on 
the  28th  June  1720,  when  he  and  James  Thypland  were 
brought  before  the  Bailie's  Court,  and  fined  '  in  the 
soume  of  fyve  punds  Scots  to  the  fiscall,'  for  having,  in 
the  course  of  casting  peats  in  Biggar  Moss,  encroached 
on  their  neighbor's  room.  In  1723,  he  and  his  family 
appear  to  have  been  greatly  annoyed  by  William  Lid- 
dell,  a  horse-couper,  one  of  those  restless  and  outrageous 
individuals  who  give  their  neighbors  and  the  powers 
that  be  a  great  amount  of  trouble.  He  therefore  ar- 
raigned him  before  the  Bailie's  Court,  and  Luke  Val- 
lange,  the  presiding  magistrate,  condemned  him,  under  a 
penalty  of  '  fyve  hundred  merks  Scots,'  to  keep  the 
doctor,  and  his  wife,  bairns,  family,  and  others,  harm- 
less and  skeathless,  in  their  bodyes,  lives,  goods,  and 
geir,  and  not  to  molest  him  nor  his  in  any  sort,  directly 
or  indirectly,  in  tyme  coming. 

"  Doctors  William  Baillie  and  William  Boe  were  dis- 
tinguished physicians  at  Biggar  during  a  considerable 
part  of  last  century.  Biggar,  during  the  time  they 
flourished,  acquired  some  celebrity  as  a  medical  school. 
It  was  a  common  practice  at  that  time  for  young  men 
who  wished  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the  medical  art, 
to  serve  an  apprenticeship  to  some  eminent  practitioner. 
The  fame  of  these  two  Biggar  worthies  drew  round 
them  many  young  men,  some  of  whom  distinguished 
themselves  in  their  profession  in  after  years.  We  may 
specially  refer  to  Dr.  Robert  Jackson,  the  well-known 
army  medical  reformer." 


332         BIGGAR  AND   THE  HOUSE   OF  FLEMING. 


ROBERT    FORSYTH,  ADVOCATE. 

The  following  notice  of  this  strong -brained  man 
whose  huge  frame  and  head  were  well  known  twenty 
years  ago  in  the  Parliament  House,  where  he  invariably 
appeared  at  9  A.  M.,  •  nobody  ever  being  before  him,  is 
characteristic  of  the  times  and  of  the  class  out  of  which, 
by  his  own  native  force,  he  so  nobly  raised  himself. 

"  His  father  was  Robert  Forsyth,  bellman  and  grave- 
digger,  to  whom  we  have  already  referred ;  and  his 
mother's  name  was  Marion  Pairman.  This  worthy 
couple  were  united  in  marriage  in  1764,  and  their  only 
child.  Robert,  was  born  on  the  18th  of  January  1766. 
Their  condition  in  life  was  very  humble,  and  they  had 
to  struggle  with  all  the  disadvantages  and  sorrows  of 
extreme  poverty ;  but  they  resolved  to  give  their  son, 
who  early  showed  an  aptitude  for  learning,  a  good  edu- 
cation in  order  to  qualify  him  for  the  work  of  the  min- 
istry. He  was  sent  early  to  the  parish  school,  but  being 
the  son  of  a  poor  man,  he  was  treated  with  marked 
neglect  and  made  small  progress.  He  soon,  however, 
became  extremely  fond  of  reading.  He  borrowed  such 
books  as  his  neighbors  could  supply,  and  read  them  in 
the  winter  nights  to  his  parents,  to  Robert  Rennie,  shoe- 
maker, and  others,  who  commended  him  highly  for  his 
industry  and  ability,  and  thus  encouraged  him  to  renewed 
exertions.  In  this  way  he  became  acquainted  with  such 
works  as  '  The  History  of  the  Devil,'  '  Satan's  Invisible 
World  Discovered,'  the  Histories  of  Knox,  Crookshank, 
and  Josephus,  Ross's  '  View  of  all  Religions,'  the  poems 
of  Butler,  Young,  Milton,  Ramsay,  Pennecuik,  and  Sir 
David  Lindsay.  It  is  remembered  at  Biggar,  that  one 


BIGGAR   AND   THE  HOUSE   OF  FLEMING.          333 

evening  he  was  busily  engaged  in  reading  aloud  the 
poems  of  Sir  David  Lindsay,  by  the  blaze  of  a  piece  of 
Auchenheath  coal,  after  his  mother  had  gone  to  bed, 
when  that  worthy  matron  said,  '  O  Robie  man,  steek  the 
boords  o'  Davie  Lindsay,  and  gie  's  a  blad  o'  the  chapter 
buik  (the  Bible),  or  I'll  no  fa'  asleep  the  nicht.' 

"As  he  made  slow  progress  in  his  classical  studies  at 
the  parish  school  of  Biggar,  he  was  sent  in  his  twelfth 
or  thirteenth  year  to  the  burgh  school  of  Lanark,  then 
taught  by  Mr.  Robert  Thomson,  a  brother-in-law  of  the 
author  of  the  '  Seasons.'  Here  he  made  more  advance- 
ment in  a  few  months  than  he  had  done  for  years  previ- 
ously. When  attending  this  seminary,  he  returned  to 
Biggar  every  Saturday,  and  remained  till  Monday.  His 
aged  grandmother  was  wont  to  '  hirple '  out  the  Lind- 
saylands  road  to  meet  him  on  his  way  home  ;  but  young 
Forsyth  sometimes  spent  a  few  hours  in  climbing  trees 
at  Carmichael,  or  looking  for  birds'-nests  at  Thankerton, 
and  this  sorely  tried  the  patience  of  the  old  dame  as  she 
sat  by  the  wayside  chafing  at  his  delay,  and  longing  for 
his  return. 

"  Forsyth  then  studied  four  years  at  the  University 
of  Glasgow,  and  manfully  struggled  with  all  the  obstruc- 
tions arising  from  the  res  anyusta  domi.  During  one  of 
these  years,  a  severe  and  protracted  storm  of  frost  and 
snow  occurred,  and  prevented  all  communication  from 
place  to  place  by  means  of  carts.  The  Biggar  carrier 
was  consequently  unable  to  pay  his  usual  visits  to  Glas- 
gow for  several  weeks.  Old  Forsyth  was  thrown  into 
great  distress  regarding  the  state  in  which  he  knew  his 
son  would  be  placed  from  want  of  his  ordinary  supply 
of  provisions.  He  therefore  procured  a  quantity  of  oat- 
meal, and  carried  it  on  his  back  along  the  rough  tracks 


334         BIGGAR   AND   THE   HOUSE   OF   FLEMING. 

on  the  top  of  the  snow  all  the  way  to  Glasgow,  a  dis- 
tance of  thirty-five  miles,  and  just  arrived  when  young 
Forsyth  had  been  reduced  to  his  last  meal." 

He  studied  for  the  Church,  but  having  no  interest, 
though  an  eloquent  preacher,  and  having  then,  perhaps, 
no  great  belief  in  what  he  preached,  he  gave  up  the 
ministry  and  took  to  the  bar. 

"  At  that  time  the  men  of  the  Parliament  House  were 
more  exclusive  than  they  are  at  present.  They  cared 
little  for  a  new  adherent  to  their  ranks  unless  he  came 
recommended  by  his  connection  with  some  aristocratic 
family.  The  idea  of  a  sticket  minister,  and  the  son  of  a 
grave-digger,  obtaining  admission  into  their  dignified  or- 
der, was  intolerable  to  the  Dundases,  the  Forbeses,  the 
Wedderburus,  the  Erskines,  and  others,  who  in  those 
days  ruled  the  roast  in  the  Parliament  House.  One  of 
their  number  connected  with  the  Biggar  district,  but 
never  distinguished  for  obtaining  any  great  amount  of 
practice,  was  specially  opposed  to  Forsyth,  and  one  day 
had  the  audacity  to  say,  '  Who  are  you,  sir,  that  would 
thrust  yourself  into  the  Faculty  ?  Are  ye  not  the  poor 
bellman's  son  of  Biggar?'  'I  am  so,'  said  Forsyth 
coolly,  but  sarcastically,  '  and  I  have  a  strong  suspicion 
that,  had  you  been  a  bellman's  son  you  would  have 
been  your  father's  successor.'  " 

MART   TOUSTON   AND   PROFESSIONAL    ETHICS. 

"  William  Baillie's  (the  tinker's)  wife,  Mary  Youston, 
was  also  a  remarkable  character.  In  height  she  was 
nearly  six  feet,  her  eyes  were  dark  and  penetrating,  her 
face  was  much  marked  with  the  smallpox,  and  her  ap- 
pearance was  fierce  and  commanding.  She  was  even 


BIGGAR  AND   THE   HOUSE   OF   FLEMING.          335 

more  dreaded  than  her  husband,  as  she  was  more  auda- 
cious and  unscrupulous.  Few  persons  cared  to  give  her 
offence,  because,  if  they  did,  they  were  sure  in  the  end 
to  suffer  some  loss  or  injury.  '  It  is  like  Mary  Yous- 
ton's  awmous,  gien  mair  for  her  ill  than  for  her  guid.' 
She  was,  like  her  husband,  a  dexterous  thief  and  pick- 
pocket, so  that  it  was  a  common  observation  regarding 
her,  '  Whip  her  up  Biggar  street  on  a  market  day,  wi' 
a  man  at  ilka  oxter,  and  she  would  steal  a  purse  ere 
they  got  her  to  the  head  o  't.'  Many  stories  of  her  say- 
ings and  exploits  were  at  one  time  prevalent  among  the 
peasantry  of  the  Biggar  district.  We  give  a  specimen 
or  two.  One  day  Mary  arrived  at  the  village  of  Than- 
kerton,  with  several  juveniles,  who  were  usually  trans- 
ported from  place  to  place  in  the  panniers  of  the  cud- 
dies. She  commenced  hawking  her  commodities  amongst 
the  inhabitants,  when  some  of  the  children  of  the  village 
came  into  the  house  where  she  was,  and  cried,  '  Mary, 
your  weans  are  stealing  the  eggs  out  of  the  hen's  nest.' 
Mary  quite  exultingly  exclaimed,  '  The  Lord  be  praised  ! 
I  am  glad  to  hear  that  the  bairns  are  beginning  to  show 
some  signs  o'  thrift' " 

"  LANGLEATHERS. 

"  John  Thomson,  commonly  called  '  Langleathers,'  was 
a  person  of  great  strength,  and  carried  a  budget  of  old 
iron  implements  and  other  articles  on  his  back  that  few 
persons  could  lift.  He  was  decidedly  fatuous ;  and  the 
report  was  that  he  had  received  such  a  shock  on  witness- 
ing the  destruction  of  the  city  of'  Lisbon  by  an  earth- 
quake in  1755,  that  he  never  again  entirely  recovered 
his  reason.  He  used,  in  his  contemplative  moods,  often 


336         BIGGAR   AXD   THE   HOUSE   OF   FLEMING. 

to  mutter  to  himself,  '  I  saw  a  city  sunk.'  He  was  in- 
offensive, except  when  roused  by  the  annoyances  and 
tricks  of  mischievous  boys.  He  then  became  exceedingly 
noisy  and  outrageous  ;  and,  being  a  dexterous  '  hencher ' 
of  stones,  it  required  great  nimbleuess  on  the  part  of  the 
youthful  tormentors  to  avoid  his  aim.  When  we  hap- 
pened to  be  at  Biggar  on  Sabbath,  the  boys  and  he 
were  sure  to  come  into  collision,  and  then  a  great  deal 
of  noise  and  disturbance  was  the  consequence.  He  had 
rather  a  fondness  for  these  encounters,  and  was  not 
easily  prevailed  on  to  give  them  up.  When  any  person 
remonstrated  with  him,  and  said  that  he  ought  to  pay 
more  respect  to  the  Sabbath,  '  Weel,  weel,  then,'  said 
Jock,  'I'll  aff  to  Crawfordjohn;  there's  nae  Sabbath 
there.' " 

Jock  Robertson,  a  clever  ne'er-do-weel,  who  had  been 
at  Glasgow  College  with  Campbell  the  poet,  long  haunted 
the  Upper  Ward,  getting  his  bed,  his  supper,  and  his 
dram  at  the  farm  "  touns  "  for  his  tricks  and  his  fortune- 
telling,  of  which  he  thus  gives  the  rationale:  —  GOOD 
PHILOSOPHY.  —  "  Such  is  the  propensity  of  human  na- 
ture to  pry  into  futurity,  that  I  am  very  successful  as  a 
spaeman ;  and  as  I  take  no  money,  I  am  less  apt  to  be 
committed  as  a  vagrant.  I  can  hide  my  tongue  in  such 
a  manner  that  it  cannot  be  observed  ;  and  though  I  am 
dumb,  I  am  not  deaf ;  I  hear  in  one  house  what  is  going 
on  in  another,  and  can  easily  make  a  tolerable  history. 
I  first  kneel  down  on  the  floor,  then  draw  a  magic  circle 
with  my  chalk ;  next  I  write  the  initials,  J.  S.,  which 
will  serve  for  John  Smith,  James  Sommerville,  Joseph 
Sym,  Jacob  Simpson,  and  a  thousand  more.  On  seeing 
the  initials,  a  girl  perhaps  whispers,  '  I  '11  wager  that 's 
our  Johnnie  that 's  at  the  sea.'  Having  found  a  clew 


BIGGAB  AND   THE  HOUSE   OF   FLEMING.         337 

I  draw  a  ship,  and  write  Mediterranean,  or  whatever  can 
be  elicited  from  the  tattle  of  the  maidens.  If,  on  in- 
specting the  initials,  they  look  grave,  or  give  a  hint 
about  death,  I  draw  a  coffin  ;  but  if  the  initials  do  not 
suit  any  absent  friend  of  the  parties,  I  make  them  a 
sentence,  'I  say,'  and  follow  it  up  with  a  new  set  of 
letters  till  I  can  fabricate  a  story." 

About  a  hundred  years  ago  an  old  man,  Adam  Thom- 
son, who  made  and  sold  heather  besoms,  and  "  ranges," 
and  "  basses,"  —  mats  of  straw  or  rushes,  "  threshes," 
as  they  are  called  in  that  broad  tongue  which  rejoices  in 
Haup  for  Hope  and  Wull  for  Will  —  lived  in  a  lonely 
cottage  in  the  bleak  muirland  between  Biggar  and  Carn- 
wath.  One  night  in  midsummer  when  they  were  all  in 
bed,  Thomson,  who  had  gone  to  the  door  to  answer  a 
loud  knocking,  was  brutally  murdered,  his  wife  mal- 
treated, and  the  house  robbed  :  — 

"  Great  efforts,  by  offering  rewards,  and  otherwise, 
were  made  to  discover  the  perpetrators  of  this  foul  out- 
rage. Several  persons  were  apprehended  on  suspicion, 
and  all  manner  of  reports  were  put  in  circulation  ;  but 
no  satisfactory  discovery  was  made,  and  most  persons 
began  to  consider  that  further  search  was  hopeless. 

"  Adam  Thomson,  a  son  of  the  deceased,  a  man  of 
strange  notions  and  eccentric  habits,  and  then  school- 
master of  the  parish  of  Walston,  after  pondering  for  a 
long  time  over  the  mysterious  death  of  his  father,  re- 
solved to  make  personal  efforts  to  discover  the  murder- 
ers. From  time  to  time,  so  often  as  his  vocation  would 
permit,  he  left  his  native  locality,  and  travelled  over  the 
greater  part  of  Scotland  and  England,  making  minute 
inquiries  after  suspicious  characters,  visiting  jails,  and 
mixing  with  thieves,  tinkers,  and  vagabonds  of  all  sorts. 
22 


BIG  GAR  AND   THE   HOUSE   OF   FLEMING. 

Again  and  again  he  returned  home  baffled  and  disap- 
pointed. One  evening  as  he  lay  in  bed  ruminating  on 
the  painful  subject  which  had  taken  so  firm  a  hold  of 
his  mind,  he  felt  a  strong  and  irresistible  impulse  once 
more  to  renew  his  search.  He  rose  early  next  morning, 
and  wended  his  way  to  Jedburgh,  where,  as  was  his 
wont,  he  repaired  to  the  To! booth.  Here  he  made  the 
usual  inquiries  at  the  prisoners,  if  any  of  them  knew  the 
perpetrators  of  his  father's  murder,  and  it  is  understood 
that  he  obtained  such  information  as  enabled  him  to 
take  effectual  steps  to  apprehend  them  and  bring  them 
to  justice.  It  was  thus  ascertained  that  the  murder  was 
committed  by  two  men,  John  Brown  and  James  Wilson, 
and  two  women,  Martha  Wilson  and  Janet  Greig.  At 
what  place  James  Wilson  was  apprehended  we  have  not 
ascertained ;  but  John  Brown  was  captured  in  a  house 
near  the  Fort  of  Inversnaid,  by  a  party  of  soldiers  from 
the  garrison,  on  Sabbath,  the  3d  January  1773,  and 
conducted  first  to  Stirling  and  then  to  Edinburgh.  As 
no  person  had  seen  them  commit  the  act,  it  would  have 
been  difficult  to  obtain  a  conviction  against  them ;  but 
the  two  women  basely  agreed  to  turn  king's  evidence. 
The  trial  of  the  two  men  was  fixed  to  take  place  on  the 
28th  June;  but  it  was  potsponed  till  the  12th  August, 
on  the  plea  that  at  least  one  of  the  panels  could  bring 
evidence  to  prove  an  alibi.  The  individual  who  at 
length  came  forward  and  made  this  attempt  was  a  per- 
son of  their  own  kidney,  called  William  Robertson ;  but 
his  statements  were  so  inconsistent  and  contradictory 
that  the  Court  committed  him  to  prison.  The  jury  unan- 
imously found  the  prisoners  guilty ;  and  the  sentence 
pronounced  upon  them  was,  that  they  should  be  executed 
in  the  Grassmarket,  Edinburgh,  on  Wednesday,  the  1  oth 


BIGGAR   AND   THE   HOUSE   OF   FLEMING.         339 

September,  and  their  bodies  given  to  Dr.  Monro  for  dis- 
section. 

"  The  execution  of  Brown  and  Wilson  took  place  on 
the  day  appointed ;  and  Adam  Thomson,  it  is  said,  ap- 
peared with  them  on  the  scaffold  and  offered  up  a  solemn 
prayer,  an  exercise  of  which  he  was  very  fond,  and  in 
which,  it  is  allowed,  he  greatly  excelled.  On  his  return 
home,  he  erected  a  stone  at  the  grave  of  his  father  in 
Carnwath  churchyard,  with  an  inscription  in  Latin.  It 
was  long  an  object  of  attraction,  and  was  visited  by 
many  persons  at  a  distance  who  had  heard  the  story  of 
the  murder,  the  extraordinary  efforts  made  by  young 
Thomson  to  discover  the  perpetrators  of  it,  and  the  sin- 
gular epitaph  which  he  had  composed.  A  relative  of 
Thomson,  some  years  ago,  removed  the  stone  to  the 
neighboring  churchyard  of  Libberton,  and  there  barbar- 
ously caused  the  inscription  to  be  defaced  or  erased,  and 
another  one,  regarding  his  own  immediate  relations,  to 
be  put  i'n  its  place.  So  far  as  can  be  remembered  the 
inscription  ran  as  follows:  — 

" '  Hie  jacet  Adamus  Thomson,  qui  xv.  ante  Cal. 
Julii  1771,  cruentis  manibus,  Joannis  Brown,  Jacobi 
Wilson,  et  duarum  feminarum,  apud  Nigram  Legem, 
^rope  Novam  JEdificationem,  crudelissime  trucidatus 
erat.  Illi,  Adamo  Thomson,  defuncti  filio  et  ludimagis- 
tro  de  Walston,  detecti  erant.  Ob  quod  crimen  nefan- 
durn,  Brown  et  Wilson,  capitis  damnati,  et  xvii.  Cal. 
Oct.  1773,  suspensi  erant. 

" '  Hoc  monumentum  extructum  fuit  Adamo  Thom- 
son, rectore  Academic  de  Walston.' 

"  The  late  Rev.  William  Meek  of  Dunsyre  was  wont 
to  quote  the  above  inscription  as  a  curious  sample  of  the 
Latinity  of  the  dominies  of  the  Upper  Ward,  putting 


340         BIGGAR  AND   THE  HOUSE   OF   FLEMING. 

special  emphasis  on  the  rendering  of  Blacklaw,  near 
Newbigging,  by  '  Nigram  Legem,  prope  Novam  JEdifi- 
cationem,'  and  the  fine  conceit  of  Thomson  in  styling 
himself  '  ludimagister '  and  '  rector  '  of  the  Academy  of 
Walston." 

Adam  Thomson  tracking  his  father's  murderers  like  a 
sleuth-hound,  and  then  offering  up  a  solemn  prayer  — 
"  an  exercise  of  which  he  was  very  fond "  —  at  their 
gallows,  is  worthy  of  Matthew  Wald  and  that  fell  shoe- 
maker M'Ewan,  whose  predestinarian  meditations  on 
the  sands  at  Lamlash,  none  who  have  read  Lockhart's 
intense  novel  are  likely  to  forget. 

And  now  for  a  bit  of  the  comic.  Robert  Forsyth,  the 
father  of  the  advocate,  and  himself  grave-digger,  bell- 
man, and  minister's  man,  was  asked  by  his  master,  who 
was  knowing  in  pigs,  to  take  one  of  a  very  fine  litter 
to  his  friend,  the  then  minister  of  Dolphinton.  Rob 
was  told  to  be  sure  to  inform  the  receiver  of  every- 
thing about  its  "blood,  and  culture"  —  not  only  who  its 
father  and  mother,  but  who  its  forebears  generally  were. 
"  And  ye  see,  Rab,  be  shure  ye  tell  this  afore  ye  let  it 
oot,  for  he  '11  never  heed  a  word  ye  say  after  that  for 
glowerin'  at  its  perfections."  So  off  Rob  trudged  with 
his  pock  and  its  high-bred  burden.  When  he  came  to 
Candy  Burn,  a  little  way  out  of  Biggar,  where  a  dram 
was  then  sold,  he  met  Richie  Robb,  a  humorist  and  wag, 
who,  seeing  the  bedral,  says,  "  Whaur  are  ye  gaun?" 
"Oo,  I'm  gaun  to  Dowfintoun,  wi'  joost  the  wunner- 
fust  pig  ever  was  piggit ;  it 's  for  the  minister."  "  Ay, 
man  !  Come  yer  ways  in  and  tak  a  dram,  and  let 's  see 
the  pig."  The  pig  was  seen  and  admired,  and  then  the 
dram  and  a  crack.  Meantime,  Richie  takes  out  the  pig 
and  puts  in  a  young  puppy-dog  about  the  same  weight, 


BIGGAR  AND   THE   HOUSE   OF   FLEMING.         341 

jtnd  Robbie  trudges  off,  arriving  in  the  afternoon  at  the 
manse  of  Dolphinton.  The  minister  was  out  looking 
about  him,  and  knew  Rob.  "  What 's  this  in  the  pock, 
Robbie,  my  man  ?  "  "  Ay,  ye  may  well  speir,  Mr. 
Meek.  It 's  joost  the  maist  extraordnar  pig  ever  was. 
M}7  maister  has  sent  it  as  a  parteekler  present  to  you, 
wi'  his  compliments."  "  Let  us  see 't,  Robbie."  "  Na, 
na,  sir,  I  maun  first  put  ye  up  to  its  generation,  sae  to 
speak."  He  then  detailed  its  antecedents,  and  let  it 
solemnly  escape  at  the  corner.  Out  came  the  puppy, 
winking  and  lively.  "  That 's  a  dowg,  Robbie !  "  says 
the  minister.  "  A  dowg !  a  dowg  !  as  shure  's  daith  it 
is  a  dowg;  it  was  as  shure,  Mr.  Meek — as  fac's  daith 
— it  was  a  pig  when  it  gaed  in  !  "  "  Weel,  Robbie,  it's 
a  dowg  noo,  so  you  may  tak'  it  back.  But  come  in  and 
hae  yer  four  oors."  Robbie  took  a  fearful  look  at  the 
beast,  returned  it  with  much  subdued  blasphemy,  aston- 
ishment, and  cruelty  to  the  pock,  and,  making  a  hearty 
meal,  started  again,  giving  a  skeptical  keek  into  the 
pock  every  now  and  then  on  his  way  when  he  thought 
nobody  saw  him,  to  see  what  further  change  was  going 
on.  He  arrived  once  more,  disgusted,  bewildered,  and 
weary,  at  Candy  Burn,  where,  of  course,  Richie  was 
waiting  for  him.  "  Ye  've  been  lang,  Robbie,  and  what 
for  are  ye  carryin'  the  pock  ower  yer  shouther  ?  "  Rob- 
bie gave  a  grunt  of  disgust, and  told  his  story.  "That's 
awfu',  Robbie,  perfectly  fearsome ;  ye  maun  stap  in  and 
hae  a  dram.  Oo  maun  tell  Tibbie."  Rob  flung  down 
his  pock  with  its  portentous  contents — which  gave  an 
unmistakable  yowl — and  took  his  dram  and  told  his 
woes.  Of  course  Richie  transposed  the  pig  once  more, 
and  on  went  Rob,  heartened  by  drink  a  little,  but  full  of 
alarm  as  to  his  master,  who  met  him  at  the  door  eager 


342         BIGGAR   AND   THE  HOUSE   OF   FLEMING. 

to  know  what  his  friend  thought  of  the  pig.  Robbie 
flung  down  his  pock  with  a  desperate  air,  took  his  stand, 
and,  rubbing  his  forehead,  poured  out  the  prodigious 
story  —  "A  whaulp,  an  absolute  whaulp,  as  ye  may  see, 
sir,  wi'  yer  ain  een."  Opening  the  pock  and  giving  it  a 
vindictive  kick,  out  came  the  pig  of  the  morning !  "  As 
fac  's  death,  Mr.  Watson,  it  was  a  whaulp  at  Dowfinton, 
and  I  lookit  in  noos  and  thans  to  see  if  it  was  turnm' 
into  ony  thing  else  ;  and  it  was  a  whaulp  at  Candy  Burn, 
and  that  Richie  Robb  can  aver  and  sweer."  "  Xae  doot, 
Robbie,  Richie  kens  a'  aboot  it,"  said  the  more  knowing 
minister.  In  its  own  small  way,  this  is  as  good  a  joke  as 
any  since  Boccaccio.  What  a  finished  personation  Mat- 
thews or  Sir  William  Allan  would  have  made,  and  Mac- 
nee  or  Peter  Fraser  would  make  of  it !  There  was  — 
"  Ah  for  the  change  'twixt  now  and  then  !  "  —  an  institu- 
tion in  Biggar  as  peculiar  to  it  as  is  the  Godiva  proces- 
sion to  Coventry,  —  the  "  Hurley-hacket !  "  It  has  ceased 
forever,  because  its  possibility  is  no  more.  Forty  years 
ago,  the  Corse  Knowe,  or  Cross  Hill,  was  as  essential  a 
feature  in  Biggar  as  St.  Paul's  in  London,  St.  Rcgulus' 
Tower  at  St.  Andrews,  the  Campanile  in  Venice,  or  our 
own  Castle  here.  Biggar  is  no  more  Biggar  as  it  was 
than  the  Apollo  would  be  himself  without  his  nose. 
This  hiowe  was  in  the  centre  of  the  town,  and  middle 
of  the  street,  and  the  market  cross  was  on  its  top ;  and 
when  there  was  a  hard  frost,  it  was  the  pleasure  of  the 
entire  town,  young  and  old,  to  go  mad,  and  take  to  hurl- 
ing themselves  down  the  frozen  slopes,  "  keepin'  the  pud- 
din'  het "  in  an  astonishing  way.  As  were  the  Saturna- 
lia to  old,  and  the  Carnival  to  present  Rome,  so  was  this 
short  insanity  to  the  staid  town  —  its  consummation  be- 
ing the  Hurley-hacket,  a  sort  of  express  train,  headed  by 


BIG  GAR  AND   THE  HOUSE  OF   FLEMING.         343 

one  or  two  first-raters,  "  perfect  deevils,"  who  could  de- 
scend the  steep  standing,  like  Hamlet  in  "To  be  oi^not 
to  be,"  calm,  and  with  their  arms  crossed,  and  their  feet 
close  heel-and-toe,  shod  with  iron  ;  one  fellow  —  he  was 
afterwards  hanged  —  was  generally  the  leader,  straight 
as  an  arrow  shooting  the  rapids,  and  yielding,  like  a  con- 
summate rider,  to  the  perilous  ups  and  down  ;  behind 
him  came  the  lads  and  lasses,  scudding  on  their  hunkers  ; 
then  their  elders  on  their  creepies,  turned  upside  down, 
and  then  the  ruck.  Away  it  swept,  yelling  and  sway- 
ing to-and-fro,  like  a  huge  dragon,  lithe  and  supple  — 
"  swingeing  the  horror  "  of  its  multitudinous  tail  —  down 
across  the  street,  heedless  of  everything,  running,  it 
may  be,  right  into  Mr.  Pairman's  shop,  or  down  on  the 
other  side  into  William  Johnstone's  byre,  and  past  the  tail 
of  his  utmost  coo.  Then  the  confusion  and  scrimmage, 
and  doubling  of  everybody  up  at  the  ending !  that  was 
the  glory,  like  emptying  an  express  train  into  a  "  free 
tooni."  All  this  is  gone,  the  Corse  Knowe  is  levelled, 
the  Hurley-hacket  is  unknown,  no  longer  flames  down 
the  steep  with  half  the  town,  and  it  may  be  the  minister 
and  the  dominie  secretly  at  its  tail,  with  a  fragment  of  a 
tar  barrel  flourishing  and  blazing  at  its  head.  It  was 
worthy  of  the  pen  of  him  who  sang  of  Anster  Fair. 
The  old  Biggar  callauts  may  say,  with  their  native  poet 
Robert  Rae  — 

"  Syne  fancy  leads  me  back  to  some 
Tremendous  Hurley-hacket  row, 
When  '  Roarin'  Billie,'  langsyne  dumb, 

Gaed  thunderin'  doon  the  auld  Corse  Knowe." 


"London's  big,  but  Biggar 's  Biggar."  — Joke  of  the 
Distri  f. 


SIR  HENRY  EAEBURN. 


SIR  HENRY  RAEBURN.1 

JIR  HENRY  RAEBURN"  is  the  greatest  of 
j  Scottish  portrait- painters.  Others  may  have 
painted  one  or  more  as  excellent  portraits :  we 
have  Sir  George  Harvey's  Mrs.  Horn  —  a  veritable 
Mater  Scotorum — and  his  Professor  Wilson,  and  my 
father,  the  property  of  Mrs.  Jas.  Crum ;  Duncan's  Dr. 
Chalmers  and  his  magical  likeness  of  himself;  Geddes's 
Wilkie,  so  finely  engraved  in  brown  by  Ward,  also  his 
old  "Sicily"  Brydone  reclining  on  his  sofa  —  an  ex- 
quisite piece — and  his  own  "couthy"  old  mother;  the 
Provost  of  Peterhead  by  Sir  John  Watson  Gordon ; 
"  The  Man  of  Feeling "  by  Colvin  Smith ;  and  Dr. 
Wardlaw  by  Macnee ; 2  but  none  of  these  have  given  to 
the  world  such  a  profusion  of  masterpieces.  Indeed,  Sir 
Henry's  name  may  stand  with  those  of  the  world's  great- 
est men  in  this  department  of  Art  —  Titian  and  Tinto- 
retto, Vandyck  and  Rubens,  Velasquez  and  Rembrandt, 

1  Prefixed  to  a  volume  of  "Portraits  of  Sir  Henry  Raeburn."   Folio. 
Edin.     1874. 

2  I  had  just  come  from  this  excellent  man's  burial  when  the  proof 
of  this  came  in.    He  was  a  good  painter,  a  great  humorist,  an  incom- 
parable raconteur,  and  a  most  lovable  man  —  as  unaffected  as  when 
I  saw  him  fifty  and  more  years  agj,  or  as  his  own  Touch  Hills  ;  and 
whoever  saw  and  heard  "The  hat,"  or  "The  gamekeeper's  ghost 
Btory,"  or  his  tremendous  "  Sam  Bough's  railway  journey  to  Port- 
Glasgow,"  and  indeed  any  of  his  perfect  stories,  can  ever  forget  or  tell 
them  ? —  it  is  a  lost  delight  and  wonder.  —  [Jan.  21,  1882.] 


348  SIR   HEXRY   RAEBURN. 

Sir  Joshua,  Gainsborough,  and  Hogarth  (witness  his 
Captain  Coram).  There  is  a  breadth  and  manliness,  a 
strength  and  felicity  of  likeness  and  of  character,  and  a 
simplicity  and  honesty  of  treatment,  which  are  found 
only  in  men  of  primary  genius. 

Of  the  great  masters  of  portraiture,  Velasquez  is  the 
one  whom  Raeburn  most  resembles.  Wilkie,  —  a  first- 
rate  Art  critic,  —  writing  from  Madrid,  where  one  must 
go  to  feel  the  full  power  of  the  great  Spaniard,  says, 
"There  is  much  resemblance  between  him  and  the 
works  of  some  of  the  chiefs  of  the  English  school ;  but 
of  all,  Raeburn  resembles  him  most,  in  whose  square 
touch  in  heads,  hands,  and  accessories  I.  see  the  very 
counterpart  in  Velasquez."  Nothing  can  be  happier  than 
the  expression  "  square  touch  "  as  characteristic  of  the 
handling  of  both,  and  with  Raeburn  it  must  have  been 
like-mindedness,  not  imitation,  as  there  is  no  reason  to 
think  he  saw  almost  any  of  the  works  of  this  great 
master. 

Raeburn  stands  nearly  alone  among  the  great  portrait- 
painters,  in  having  never  painted  anything  else.  This 
does  not. prove  that  he  was  without  the  ideal  faculty.  Xo 
man  can  excel  as  a  portrait-painter  —  no  man  can  make 
the  soul  look  out  from  a  face  —  who  wants  it.  Richmond 
pleasantly  put  it,  and  truly,  to  Professor  Syme,  when 
he  first  showed  him  the  drawing  of  himself,  well  known 
by  Holl's  engraving ;  the  great  surgeon,  after  scrutiniz- 
ing it  with  his  keen  and  honest  eyes,  exclaimed,  laugh- 
ing, "  Yes,  it  is  like ;  but  then  —  it  is  good-looking  !  " 
"  Ah !  you  see,"  said  the  artist,  "  we  do  it  lovingly." 
The  best  likeness  of  a  man  should  be  the  ideal  of  him 
realized.  As  Coleridge  used  to  say,  "A  great  portrait 
should  be  liker  than  its  original;"  it  should  contain 


SIR   HENRY  RAEBURX.  349 

more  of  the  best,  more  of  the  essence  of  the  man  than 
ever  was  in  any  one  living  look.  In  these  two  qualities 
Raeburn  always  is  strong ;  he  never  fails  in  giving  a 
likeness  at  once  vivid,  unmistakable,  and  pleasing.  He 
paints  the  truth,  and  he  paints  it  in  love. 

This  eminent  Scotsman  was  born  in  Stockbridge,  on 
the  Water  of  Leith  —  now  a  part  of  Edinburgh  —  on 
the  4th  of  March  1756.  His  ancestors  were  of  the 
sturdy  Border  stock  —  reiving,  pastoral  lairds  —  and 
probably  took  their  name  from  Raeburn,  a  hill-farm  in 
Annandale  still  held  by  Sir  Walter  Scott's  kinsfolk.1 
Raeburn  was  left  an  orphan  at  six,  and  was  educated  in 
Heriot's  Hospital  or  "  Wark,"  as  it  was  called.  He  is 
one  of  the  curiously  few  of  those  brought  up  in  this 
Scottish  Christ's  Hospital  who  became  distinguished  in 
after  life  —  a  contrast  to  the  scholars  of  the  great  Lon- 
don School.  At  fifteen  he  was  apprenticed  to  a  gold- 
smith. He  early  showed  his  turn  for  Art.  He  carica- 
tured his  comrades,  and  by  and  by,  without  any  teaching, 
made  beautiful  miniatures  of  his  friends.  After  his  time 
was  out,  he  set  himself  entirely  to  portrait-painting, 
giving  np  miniature,  and  passing  from  its  delicacies  and 
minuteness  at  once  to  his  bold  "  square  touch "  in  oil. 
He  had  to  teach  himself  everything,  —  drawing,  the 
composition  of  colors,  in  which  doubtless  he  employed 
largely  Opie's  well-known  mixture,  "  With  Brains,  Sir." 
About  this  time  the  young  Herioter  became  acquainted 
with  the  famous  cynic,  lawyer,  and  wit,  John  Clerk, 
afterwards  Lord  Eldin,  then  a  young  advocate,  fond  of 
pictures  and  of  painting,  in  which  he  had  some  of  that 

1  His  grandson  tells  me  that  Sir  Henry  used  to  say  he  was  a  Raeburn 
of  that  Ilk  —  his  forebears  having  had  it  before  the  Scotts,  whose  it  ia 
now.  His  crest  is  a  Rae  or  Roe  deer. 


350  SIR   HENRY    RAEBURN. 

family  gift  which,  in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Blackburn,  has 
blossomed  out  into  such  rare  and  exquisite  work.  Allan 
Cunningham  tells  a  good  story  of  this  time.  Both  were 
then  poor.  Young  Clerk  asked  Raeburn  to  dine  at  his 
lodgings.  Coming  in,  he  found  the  landlady  laying  the 
cloth  and  setting  down  two  dishes,  one  containing  three 
herrings,  and  tne  other  three  potatoes.  "  Is  this  a'  ?  " 
said  John.  "Ay,  it's  a'!"  "AM  didn't  I  tell  ye, 
wummau,  that  a  gentleman  is  to  dine  wi'  me,  and  that 
ye  were  to  get  six  herrin'  and  six  potatoes  ?  " 

When  twenty-two,  the  following  romantic  incident,  as 
told  by  Allan  Cunningham,  occurred:  —  "One  day  a 
young  lady  presented  herself  at  his  studio,  and  desired 
to  sit  for  her  portrait ;  he  instantly  remembered  having 
seen  her  in  some  of  his  excursions,  when,  with  his 
sketch-book  in  his  hand,  he  was  noting  down  fine  snatches 
of  scenery  ;  and  as  the  appearance  of  anything  living 
and  lovely  gives  an  additional  charm  to  a  landscape,  the 
painter,  like  Gainsborough  in  similar  circumstances,  had 
admitted  her  readily  into  his  drawing."  He  found  that 
she  had,  besides  beauty,  sensibility  and  wit  —  he  fell  in 
love  with  his  sitter,  and  made  a  very  fine  portrait,  now 
at  Charlesfield.  The  lady,  Ann  Edgar,  daughter  of  the 
Laird  of  Bridgelands,  became  in  a  mouth  after  this  his 
wife,  bringing  him  a  good  fortune,  good  sense,  and  an 
affectionate  heart.  He  now  resolved  to  visit  London 
and  improve  himself  in  his  art.  He  was  introduced  to 
Sir  Joshua,  and  often  told  how  the  great  painter  coun- 
selled him  to  go  to  Rome  and  worship  Michael  Angelo  in 
the  Sistine  Chapel,  and  study  his  "  terribile  via"  and  how 
in  parting  he  said,  "  Young  man,  I  know  nothing  of 
your  circumstances  —  young  painters  are  seldom  rich  — 
but  if  money  be  necessary  for  your  studies  abroad,  say 


SIR   HENRY   RAEBURN.  351 

so,  and  you  shall  not  want  it."  There  is  little  record  of 
his  life  at  Rome.  Byres,  Barry's  antagonist,  gave  him 
an  advice  he  ever  after  followed,  and  often  spoke  of: 
"  Never  paint  any  object  from  memory,  if  you  can  get 
it  before  your  eyes." 

From  his  return  to  Edinburgh  until  his  death  his  life 
was  busy,  happy,  and  victorious.  Full  of  work,  eager, 
hospitable,  faithful  in  his  friendships,  homely  in  his  hab- 
its, he  was  one  of  the  best-liked  men  of  his  time.  The 
following  is  Cunningham's  account  of  him  :  —  "  Though 
his  painting-rooms  were  in  York  Place,  his  dwelling- 
house  was  at  St.  Bernard's,  near  Stockbridge,  overlook- 
ing the  water  of  Leith  —  a  romantic  place.  The  steep 
banks  were  then*  finely  wooded ;  the  garden  grounds 
varied  and  beautiful ;  and  all  the  seclusion  of  the  coun- 
try could  be  enjoyed,  without  the  remoteness.  The  mo- 
tions of  the  artist  were  as  regular  as  those  of  a  clock. 
He  rose  at  seven  during  summer,  took  breakfast  about 
eight  with  his  wife  and  children,  walked  up  to  his  great 
room  in  32  York  Place,  now  occupied  by  Colvin  Smith, 
R.  S.  A.,  and  was  ready  for  a  sitter  by  nine ;  and  of 
sitters  he  generally  had,  for  many  years,  not  fewer  than 
three  or  four  a  day.  To  these  he  gave  an  hour  and  a 
half  each.  He  seldom  kept  a  sitter  more  than  two 
hours ;  unless  the  person  happened  —  and  that  was 
often  the  case  —  to  be  gifted  with  more  than  common 
talents.  He  then  felt  himself  happy,  and  never  failed 
to  detain  the  party  till  the  arrival  of  a  new  sitter  inti- 
mated that  he  must  be  gone.  For  a  head  size  he  gener- 
ally required  four  or  five  sittings,  and  he  preferred  paint- 
ing the  head  and  hands  to  any  other  part  of  the  body : 
assigning  as  a  reason  that  they  required  least  considera- 
tion. A  fold  of  drapery,  or  the  natural  ease  which  the 


352  SIR   HENRY   RAEBURN. 

casting  of  a  mantle  over  the  shoulder  demanded,  occa* 
sioued  him  more  perplexing  study  than  a  head  full  of 
thought  and  imagination.  Such  was  the  intuition  with 
which  he  penetrated  at  once  to  the  mind,  that  the  first 
sitting  rarely  came  to  a  close  without  his  having  seized 
strongly  on  the  character  and  disposition  of  the  individ- 
ual. He  never  drew  in  his  heads,  or  indeed  any  part  of 
the  body,  with  chalk,  —  a  system  pursued  successfully 
by  Lawrence ;  but  began  with  the  brush  at  once.  The 
forehead,  chin,  nose,  and  mouth  were  his  first  touches. 
He  always  painted  standing,  and  never  used  a  stick  for 
resting  his  hand  on  ;  for  such  was  his  accuracy  of  eye, 
and  steadiness  of  nerve,  that  he  could  introduce  the  most 
delicate  touches,  or  the  utmost  mechanical  regularity  of 
line,  without  aid,  or  other  contrivance  than  fair  off-hand 
dexterity.  He  remained  in  his  painting-room  till  a  little 
after  five  o'clock,  when  he  walked  home,  and  dined  at 
six." 

One  of  his  sitters  thus  describes  him :  —  "  He  spoke 
a  few  words  to  me  in  his  usual  brief  and  kindly  way  — 
evidently  to  put  me  into  an  agreeable  mood  ;  and  then, 
having  placed  me  in  a  chair  on  a  platform  at  the  end  of 
his  painting-room,  in  the  posture  required,  set  up  his 
easel  beside  me,  with  the  canvas  ready  to  receive  the 
color.  When  he  saw  all  was  right,  he  took  his  palette 
and  his  brush,  retreated  back  step  by  step,  with  his  face 
towards  me,  till  he  was  nigh  the  other  end  of  his  room ; 
he  stood  and  studied  for  a  minute  more,  then  came  up 
to  the  canvas,  and,  without  looking  at  me,  wrought  upon 
it  with  color  for  some  time.  Having  done  this,  he  re- 
treated in  the  same  manner,  studied  my  looks  at  that 
distance  for  about  another  minute,  then  came  hastily  up 
to  the  canvas  and  painted  a  few  minutes  more.  I  had 


SIR   HENRY   RAEBURN.  353 

sat  to  other  artists  ;  their  way  was  quite  different  — 
they  made  an  outline  carefully  in  chalk,  measured  it 
with  compasses,  placed  the  canvas  close  to  me,  and  look- 
ing me  almost  without  ceasing  in  the  face,  proceeded  to 
fill  up  the  outline  with  color.  They  succeeded  best  m 
the  minute  detail  —  Raeburn  best  in  the  general  result 
of  the  expression ;  they  obtained  by  means  of  a  multi- 
tude of  little  touches  what  he  found  by  broader  masses  ; 
they  gave  more  of  the  man  —  he  gave  most  of  the 
mind." 

"  Like  Sir  Joshua,  he  placed  his  sitters  on  a  high  plat- 
form, shortening  the  features,  and  giving  a  pigeon-hole 
view  of  the  nostrils.  The  notion  is  that  people  should  be 
painted  as  if  they  were  hanging  like  pictures  on  the  wall, 
a  Newgate  notion,  but  it  was  Sir  Joshua's.  Raeburn  and 
I  have  had  good-humored  disputes  about  this :  I  appealed 
to  Titian,  Vandyck,  etc.,  for  my  authorities  ;  they  always 
painted  people  as  if  they  were  sitting  opposite  to  them, 
not  on  a  mountebank  stage,  or  dangling  on  the  wall." 

This  great  question  we  leave  to  be  decided  by  those 
who  know  best.  His  manner  of  taking  his  likenesses 
explains  the  simplicity  and  power  of  his  heads.  Placing 
his  sitter  on  the  pedestal,  he  looked  at  him  from  the 
other  end  of  a  long  room,  gazing  at  him  intently  with 
his  great  dark  eyes.  Having  got  the  idea  of  the  man, 
what  of  him  carried  furthest  and  "  told,"  he  walked 
hastily  up  to  the  canvas,  never  looking  at  his  sitter,  and 
put  down  what  he  had  fixed  in  his  inner  eye ;  he  then 
withdrew  again,  took  another  gaze,  and  recorded  its  re- 
sults, and  so  on,  making  no  measurements.  His  hands 
are  admirably  drawn,  full  of  expression,  and  evidently 
portraits.  He  was  knighted  by  George  the  Fourth  at 
Hopetoun  House,  and  made  His  Majesty's  Limner  for 
23 


354  SIR  HENRY  RAEBURN. 

Scotland  soon  after.  He  was  a  Royal  Academician  for 
some  years  before  his  death,  and  Member  of  the  Acade- 
mies of  New  York  and  South  Carolina,  as  well  as  of 
Florence  and  Athens. 

Sir  Henry*  died,  after  a  short  illness,  on  the  8th  of 
July  1823,  beloved  and  honored  by  all.1  "Honest  Al- 
lan "  sums  up  his  personal  character  thus :  — "  The 
character  of  Raeburn  appears  to  have  been  every  way 
unblemished ;  he  was  a  candid  modest  man,  ever  ready 
to  aid  merit,  and  give  a  helping  hand  to  genius  in  art. 
His  varied  knowledge,  his  agreeable  manners,  his  nu- 
merous anecdotes,  and  his  general  conversation,  at  once 
easy  and  unaffected,  with  now  and  then  a  touch  of  hu- 
morous gayety,  made  him  a  delightful  companion;  he 
told  a  Scotch  story  with  almost  unrivalled  naivete  of  ef- 
fect, and  did  the  honors  of  a  handsome  house  and  ele- 
gant table  with  all  the  grace  of  a  high-bred  gentleman. 
Through  life  he  discharged,  with  blameless  attention,  all 
the  duties  of  a  good  citizen.  His  pencil  never  kept  him 
from  his  place  in  church  on  Sunday,  and  in  the  days  of 
trouble  he  was  a  zealous  volunteer.  First  and  last, 
among  all  the  children  of  art  no  one  was  ever  more 
widely  respected  than  Sir  Henry  Raeburn ;  and  his  tall, 
handsome  figure,  and  fine  open  manly  countenance,  will 
not  be  forgotten  for  many  a  day  in  '  the  place  which 
knew  him.' " 

The  remarkable  collection  of  Photographs  from  Rae- 
burn's  Portraits  now  given  in  this  volume,  though  want- 
ing the  charm  of  color,  and  most  of  them  from  engrav- 
ings—  masterly  indeed,  but  still  inexpressive  in  some 

l  He  is  buried  in  the  mortuary  of  St.  John's,  Edinburgh,  but  to  oui 
Jmme  there  is  not  a  word  to  say  where  he  lies. 


SIR  HENRY  RAEBURN.  355 

degree  of  the  full  power  and  sweetness  of  the  original  — 
gives  us  a  good  sample  of  this  great  master's  faculty  of 
rendering  the  human  countenance.  Judging  from  those 
we  know,  we  may  say  that  the  cardinal  virtue  of  mak- 
ing a  strong,  true  likeness  is  preeminent  in  Raeburn's 
work  ;  he  seizes  the  essential  features  and  expression, 
which  make  the  man  to  differ  from  all  other  men  ;  and 
he  gives  the  best  of  him.  Take  that  of  Dr.  Nathaniel 
Spens  as  a  Royal  Archer :  we  do  not  know  a  nobler 
portrait ;  look  at  his  eye,  at  his  firm  legs,  at  his  gloved 
hands,  at  the  cock  of  his  bonnet.  At  his  feet  is  a  sturdy 
Scotch  thistle,  bristling  all  over  with  Nemo  me.  This 
great  picture  is  done  to  the  quick,  tense  with  concen- 
trated action,  and  that  arrow,  "  shot  by  an  archer 
strong,"  you  know  the  next  instant  will  be  off  and  home. 
There  is  true  genius  here.  This  picture  is  now  in 
Archers'  Hall;  we  grudge  them  it  —  it  should  be  seen 
of  all  men. 

There  is  Dr.  Adam  of  the  High  School  —  the  perfec- 
tion of  a  Rector — firm,  reasonable,  loving.  The  hold- 
ing out  the  hand  to  still  the  unseen  boys  brings  to  mind 
that  fine  story  of  him  when  dying:  lifting  up  his  thin 
hand  he  said  —  "  But  it  grows  dark,  boys ;  you  may  go." 
Then  there  is  Scott,  sitting  on  ruins,  his  dog  Camp  — 
the  English  bull-terrier  on  whose  death-day  he  wrote 
saying  he  could  not  dine  out,  because  "  a  very  dear 
friend  "  had  died  —  at  his  feet ;  the  stern  old  keep  of 
Hermitage  in  the  distance  —  was  there  ever  a  more  po- 
etic picture  of  a  poet?  Look  at  his  child-mouth  —  his 
rapt,  brooding  eyes,  seeing  things  invisible,  peopling  the 
past.  Camp  with  his  unreflex,  animal  eyes  is  looking 
as  only  dogs  look,  into  the  visible  and  the  near.  What 
cares  he  for  knights  of  old  and  minstrelsy  and  gla- 


356  SIR   HENRY  RAEBURN. 

tnourye  ?  he  is  snuffing  up  some  possible  foumart,  or, 
watching  the  twinkling  fud  of  a  vanishing  rabbit.  The 
replica  of  this  portrait  has  in  it  two  favorite  greyhounds 
of  Sir  Walter,  a  Douglas  "  and  "  Percy,"  and  the  Braes 
of  Yarrow  for  the  background. 

Then  look  at  Sir  Harry  Moncreiff.  What  a  thorough 
gentleman  —  what  a  broad,  sunny-hearted  Churchman  ! 
Look  at  the  hands,  how  expressive !  Again,  there 's 
Professor  Robison.  Did  you  ever  see  a  dressing-gown 
so  glorified?  and  the  nightcap,  and  the  look  of  steady 
speculation  in  the  eyes  —  a  philosopher  all  over. 

John  Tait  and  Grandson.  Mr.  Tait  was  grandfather 
to  the  present  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  the  little 
mannie  gazing  at  the  watch  is  the  present  Sheriff  of 
Perthshire. 

There  is  another  of  Scott  —  quite  different  but  very 
fine  —  the  bluff,  cordial  man  of  the  world  —  with  his 
pleasant  mouth  that  has  a  burr  in  it.  This  must  have 
been  done  in  his  prime. 

Francis  Horner  —  gentle  and  immovable  —  the  Ten 
Commandments  written  all  over  his  face,  as  Sydney 
Smith  said. 

John  Clerk,  his  "  herrin' "  friend,  ugly  and  snuffy, 
shrewd  and  subtle;  the  crouching  Venus  among  the 
law-papers  —  beautifully  drawn  —  indicating  John's  love 
of  Art 

Archibald  Constable,  the  handsome,  buirdly  book- 
seller of  genius,  to  whom  the  world  owes  more  of  its 
enjoyment  from  Scott  than  it  is  aware  of,  and  to  whose 
powers  and  worth  and  true  place  in  the  literature  of  this 
century,  his  son,  I  rejoice  to  see,  has  done  a  long-delayed 
act  of  justice  and  of  filial  affection,  and  done  it  well. 

Lord  Newton,  full-blooded,  full-brained,  taurine  with 


SIR   HENRY  RAEBURN.  357 

potential  vigor.  His  head  is  painted  with  a.  Rabelaisian 
richness ;  you  cannot  but  believe,  when  you  look  at  the 
vast  countenance,  the  tales  of  his  feats  in  thinking  and  in 
drinking,  and  in  general  capacity  of  body  and  of  mind. 

Jamie  Balfour,  in  the  act  of  singing  "  When  I  hae  a 
saxpence  under  my  thoom."  You  hear  the  refrain  — 
"  Toddiin'  harae,  toddliii'  hame,  round  as  a  neep  she  cam' 
toddlin'  haine."  Mr.  Melville  of  Hanley,  with  whom 
have  perished  so  many  of  the  best  Edinburgh  stories, 
used  to  tell  how  he  got  this  picture,  which  for  many 
years  hung  and  sang  in  his  hospitable  dining-room.  It 
was  bought,  at  the  selling  off  of  the  effects  of  the  old 
Leith  Golf-House,  by  a  drunken  did  caddy,  for  30s. 
Mr.  Melville  heard  of  this,  went  to  the  ancient  creature, 
and  got  it  for  40s.  and  two  bottles  of  whiskey.  James 
Stuart  of  Dunearn  offered  him  (Mr.  Melville)  £80  and 
two  pipes  of  wine  for  it,  but  in  vain.  Sir  David  Wilkie 
coveted  it  also,  and  promised  to  pay  for  it  by  a  picture 
of  his  own,  but  died  before  this  was  fulfilled. 

Eaeburn's  own  portrait  —  handsome,  kindly,  full  of 
genius.  How  is  it  that  all  painters  glorify  themselves 
so  delightfully  ?  Look  at  Vaudyck,  Nicolas  Poussin, 
Hogarth,  Rubens,  Sir  Joshua,  and  our  own  Duncan. 

Like  Sir  Joshua,  Raeburn  has  been  well  engraved  on 
the  whole.  The  number  of  his  engraved  portraits  13 
remarkable,  greater  than  any  British  painter  except 
Reynolds.  Mr.  Drurnmond  had  125,  and  there  may  be 
ten  or  fifteen  more.  Beugo's  vigorous  and  crisp  graver 
has  rendered  worthily  Dr.  Spens,  "  lord  of  the  unerring 
bow ; "  and  Charles  Turner's  brown  mezzotint  of  Sir 
Walter,  and  those  of  Sir  Harry  Moncreiff  and  Professors 
Jardine  and  Robisou,  and  many  others,  and  Walker's 
stippling  of  Lord  Hopetoun  and  Scott,  are  masterpieces 


358  SIR  HENRY  RAEBURX. 

of  their  art.  There  is  also  one  head  in  line  by  the  fa- 
mous Sharpe,  besides  Ward  (painter  of  the  famous  Bull) 
in  mezzotint. 

Raeburn  is  generally  said  to  have  failed  in  painting 
ladies.  I  think  this  a  mistake.  He  certainly  is  mainly 
a  painter  of  men;  but  this  arose  very  much  from  his 
having  more  men  than  women  as  sitters.  Can  anything 
be  more  homely  —  more  like  a  Scottish  gudewife,  more 
auld-f arrant  —  than  Mrs.  Hamilton,  the  author  of  "  The 
Cottagers  of  Gleuburnie  "  and  "  Mrs.  M'Clarty  "  and  "  I 
cunna  be  fash'd,"  —  what  sweeter,  more  "  full  of  all 
blessed  conditions,"  than  Mrs.  Scott  Moncrieff,  now  in 
our  National  Gallery,  and  one  of  the  loveliest  female 
portraits  we  know?  as  also  is  Mrs.  Gregory,  now  in 
Canaan  Lodge,  a  beautiful  woman  and  picture,  and  Mrs. 
Kennedy,  mother  of  the  staunch  intrepid  old  Whig  of 
Dunure. 

I  shall  mention  only  one  other  portrait,  it  is  of  the 
true  heroic  type  —  the  full-length  of  Lord  Duncan,  in  the 
Trinity  House  of  Leith,  which  might  without  misgiving 
hang  alongside  of  Sir  Joshua's  Lord  Heathiield,  holding 
the  key  of  Gibraltar  in  his  hand.  It  is,  as  we  have  said, 
a  heroic  picture.  The  hero  of  Camperdown  and  captor 
of  De  Winter  is  standing  at  a  table  with  his  left  hand 
resting  on  the  finger-tips  —  a  favorite  posture  with  Rae- 
burn ;  the  right  hanging  quietly  at  his  side  and  its 
distended  veins  painted  to  the  life.  It  is  the  incarnation 
of  quiet,  cheerful,  condensed  power  and  command.  The 
eyes,  bright,  almost  laughing  and  at  their  ease,  —  the 
mouth,  fixed  beyond  change,  almost  grim,  —  the  whole 
man  instinct  with  will  and  reserved  force.  The  color- 
ing is  exquisite,  and  the  picture  in  perfect  condition. 

I  end  with  the  following  excellent  estimate  of  Rae- 


SIR   HENRY   RAEBURN.  359 

burn's  merits  as  an  artist :  —  "  His  style  was  free  and 
bold,  his  coloring  rich,  deep,  and  harmonious.  He  had 
a  peculiar  power  of  rendering  the  head  of  his  figure 
bold,  prominent,  and  imposing.  The  strict  fidelity  of 
his  representations  may  in  a  great  degree  be  attributed 
to  his  invariable  custom  of  painting,  whether  the  prin- 
cipal figure  or  the  minutest  accessory,  from  the  person 
or  the  thing  itself  —  never  giving  a  single  touch  from 
memory  or  conjecture.  It  has  been  judiciously  said  that 
all  who  are  conversant  with  the  practice  of  the  Art  must 
have  observed  how  often  the  spirit  which  gave  life  and 
vigor  to  a  first  sketch  has  gradually  evaporated  as  the 
picture  advanced  to  its  more  finished  state.  To  preserve 
the  spirit,  combined  with  the  evanescent  delicacies  and 
blendings  which  nature  on  minute  inspection  exhibits, 
constitutes  a  perfection  of  art  to  which  few  have  at- 
tained. If  the  works  of  Sir  Henry  Raeburn  fail  to  ex- 
hibit this  rare  combination  in  that  degree,  to  this  dis- 
tinction they  will  always  have  a  just  claim,  that  they 
possess  a  freedom,  a  vigor,  and  a  spirit  of  effect,  and 
carry  an  impression  of  grace,  life,  and  reality,  which 
may  be  looked  for  in  vain  amidst  thousands  of  pictures, 
both  ancient  and  modern,  of  more  elaborate  execution 
and  minute  finish."  He  recorded  men  rather  as  Field- 
ing than  as  Richardson — had  they  handled  the  brush 
instead  of  the  pen  —  would  have  done;  still  the  per- 
fection is  when  both  qualities  are  at  their  best  in  one 
man,  as  in  Da  Vinci  and  Titian  and  Holbein. 

Since  writing  the  above  I  have  been  to  Charlesfield, 
the  residence  of  Sir  Henry's  grandson,  L.  TV.  Raeburn. 
I  wish  I  had  been  there  before.  It  is  a  snug  old  Scotch 
house  near  Mid-Calder,  on  a  burn  of  its  own,  which 
paraffine  has  defiled  with  its  stench  and  prismatic  films. 


360  SIR   HENRY   RAEBURN. 

I  shall  never  forget  it,  nor  the  kindness  of  the  three 
friends  —  who  showed  me  their  cherished  treasures,  and 
who  inherit  the  simplicity,  heartiness,  and  glowing  rich 
eyes  of  their  .grandfather.  The  house  is  overrun  with 
the  choicest  Raeburns. 

In  the  lobby  there  is  a  big  man,  as  many  stones  weight 
as  the  Claimant,  who  is  handed  down  as  an  Irish  Duke. 
Then  there  is  Francis  Jeffrey  when  in  his  prime  —  very 
fine  —  keen  and  kindly,  the  beautiful,  sweet,  mobile 
mouth,  the  rich,  brown  eyes.  A  head  of  the  Duke  of 
Gordon  —  finished  and  noble.  There  was  a  comico-trag- 
ic  story  attached  to  this.  The  head  was  once  on  a  full- 
length  body  in  the  Highland  dress ;  there  being  so  little 
room  in  the  house,  or  rather  so  many  pictures  in  it,  this, 
the  last  Duke  of  Gordon,  the  "  Cock  of  the  North," 
was  put  in  the  nursery,  and  my  friend  the  master  of  the 
house  said,  ashamedly,  that  he  and  his  brother  used  to 
send  sundry  pennies  through  the  person  of  his  Grace? 
and  shot  arrows  plentifully  into  his  sporran,  and  all  over 
him,  so  much  so  that  the  body  had  to  be  destroyed. 
Our  friend  is  penitent  to  this  day.  In  the  lobby  are 
several  of  the  animal-painter  Howe's  spirited  oil  sketches 
of  cart-horses  and  ploughmen,  full  of  rough  genius  and 
"go."  In  the  dining-room  are  the  heads  of  his  famil- 
iars —  whose  full  portraits  he  had  done  —  painted  from 
love  and  for  himself.  I  question  if  any  such  record  of 
pictorial  genius  and  friendship  exists.  The  walls  are 
literally  covered.  There  is  Cockburn  with  his  melan- 
choly, wonderful  eye,  with  a  joke  far  in ;  Skirving,  the 
crayon  portrait-painter,  full  of  fire  and  temper,  fit  son 
of  the  man  who  wrote  "  Hey,  Johnnie  Cope  "  and  chal- 
lenged one  of  his  affronted  troopers  to  combat. 

Reunie,  the   great   engineer  —  the   large,  powerful, 


SIR  HENRY   RAEBURN.  361 

constructive  beaver-Yike  face  of  the  inspired  millwright 
of  East  Linton. 

Professor  Dalzel —  exquisite  for  delicate,  refined  ex- 
pression and  sweetness  —  the  lactea  ubertas  of  the  dear 
old  man,  —  his  Analecta  Majora  and  Minora  lying  on 
the  table. 

Besides  many  others,  over  the  fireplace  is  a  life-size 
portrait  of  Mr.  Byres  of  Tonley,1  whom  we  have  men- 
tioned as  at  Eome  with  Raeburn  ;  this  was  painted  long 
after,  and  is  of  the  first  quality,  done  with  the  utmost 
breadth  of  felicity.  The  ruffles  of  his  shirt  are  still  of 
dazzling  whiteness,  as  if  bleached  by  the  burn-side.  At 
the  fireside  is  a  small  head  of  Ferguson  the  poet,  by 
Runciman —  intense  and  painful,  the  eyes  full  of  peril- 
ous light  and  coming  frenzy,  —  in  color  dingy  beside  the 
glow  of  Raeburn.  It  is  not  the  same  portrait  as  the  one 
engraved  in  his  works,  also  by  Runciman.  In  a  bed- 
room is  Professor  Playf air  —  very  fine  ;  Mr.  Edgar ; 
and  a  most  curious  portrait  of  Raeburn's  son  and  his 
horse  :  the  horse  is  by  Sir  Henry  —  strong,  real,  per- 
fectly drawn ;  the  son,  painted  after  his  father's  death, 
is  by  John  Syme,  remembered  by  some  of  us  for  his 
wooden  pictures.  Anything  more  ludicrous  than  the 
strength  of  the  horse's  portrait  and  the  weakness  of  the 
man's  I  never  saw  ;  it  is  like  meeting  with  a  paragraph 
by  the  worthy  Tupper,  or  some  other  folk  we  know,  in 
a  page  of  Thackery  or  Swift.  A  comical  incongruity 
of  the  same  kind  was  shown  to  me  by  Mr.  James  Drum- 
mond,  R.  S.  A.,  who  knew  and  had  so  many  things  that  no- 
body else  had  or  knew.  It  is  the  record  of  a  clever  dodge. 
Mr.  Hat  ton,  the  print-seller,  had  a  fine  print  of  Dr.  Thomas 
Hope,  Professor  of  Chemistry  in  the  University,  — • 
l  He  was  the  cicerone  of  Gibbon  in  Eome. 


SIR   HENRY   RAEBURN. 

whose  only  joke,  by  the  by,  I  well  remember,  and  apply 
it,  sometimes  to  other  than  gaseous  bodies,  —  when 
lecturing  upon  hydrogen,  he  used  to  end  with  "  In  fact, 
gentlemen,  in  regard  to  this  remarkable  body,  we  may 
almost  say  that  it  is  possessed  of  absolute  levity."  Well, 
Hatton,  when  George  the  Fourth  came  to  Scotland,  and 
we  were  all  mad  about  him,  from  Sir  Walter  downwards, 
having  made  his  utmost  out  of  the  plate  as  Dr.  Hope, 
scraped  his  head  out  and  put  in  that  of  the  bewigged 
and  becurled  "  First  Gentleman  in  Europe."  The  rest 
of  the  plate  remains  unchanged,  except  the  royal  arms 
on  the  book,  and  the  Star  of  the  Garter  on  the  Doctor's 
breast !  Dr.  Hope  had  not  much  of  the  heroic  in  his 
face  or  nature,  but  his  head  by  Raeburn  keeps  its  own 
and  more  against  that  of  His  Most  Gracious  Majesty  — 
by  Mr.  Hatton  ;  it  is  altogether  one  of  the  best  of 
jokes.  Maxwell  of  Pollok  —  the  head  finished  on  the 
naked  canvas  —  amazing  freshness  and  vigor,  as  if  done 
at  a  heat.  Henry  Mackenzie,  "  The  Man  of  Feeling  " 
—  very  fine. 

TJp-stairs  on  the  landing,  Lady  in  green  silk  pelisse, 
through  whose  body  had  gone  another  nursery  penny, 
now  neatly  healed. 

Mrs.  Vere  of  Stonebyres,  Sir  Henry's  step-daughter, 
lying  asleep,  her  head  on  a  pillow  —  a  very  fine  study. 

My  eye  was  arrested  by  a  portrait  above  a  door;  it 
was  the  head  and  neck,  life-size,  of  a  young  man  of 
great  beauty.  This,  my  friends  told  me,  was  the  por- 
trait of  Peter  Raeburn,  Sir  Henry's  eldest  son,  painted 
by  himself,  when  he  knew  he  was  dying  of  consump- 
tion, and  given  by  him  to  his  mother!  His  father  used 
to  say  that  if  he  had  lived  he  would  have  far  surpassed 
him. 


SIR   HENRY   RAEBURN.  363 

The  drawing-room  is  crowded  with  perfections.  When 
you  enter,  above  the  fireplace  is  his  own  incomparable 
portrait,  than  which — as  our  President  of  the  Royal 
Academy  says  —  no  better  portrait  exists:  it  glorifies 
the  little  room,  and  is  in  perfect  condition ;  the  engrav- 
ing gives  no  full  idea  of  the  glow  of  the  great  dark 
eyes,  the  mastery  of  touch,  the  ardor  and  power  of  the 
whole  expression.  Opposite  him  is  his  dear  little  wife, 
comely  and  sweet  and  wise,  sitting  in  the  open  air  with 
a  white  head-dress,  her  face  away  to  one  side  of  the 
picture,  her  shapely,  bare,  unjewelled  arms  and  hands 
lying  crossed  on  her  lap. 

Boy  with  cherry  —  very  like  Reynolds.  Then  there 
is  another  funny  incongruity :  Mrs.  Raeburn,  his  sou's 
wife,  a  woman  of  great  beauty,  a  sister  of  that  true  hu- 
morist to  whom  we  owe  "  Sir  Frizzle  Pumpkin,"  and 
much  else  —  the  Rev.  James  White  —  is  sitting  with 
two  young  Edgars  at  her  knees.  Her  head  and  bust 
are  by  Sir  J.  Watson  Gordon,  the  youngsters  by  Rae- 
burn, and  oh  !  the  difference  ! 

Dr.  Andrew  Thomson,  the  great  preacher  and  ecclesi- 
astical pugilist  —  very  powerful. 

Next  him,  in  the  corner,  is  the  gem  of  all,  a  little  oval 
picture  of  Eliza  Raeburn,  his  eldest  granddaughter,  who 
died  at  six;  there  she  is  —  lovely,  her  lucid  blue  eyes, 
her  snowy  bosom,  her  little  mouth,  just  open  enough 
to  indicate  the  milk-white  teeth,  the  sunnj  hair,  the 
straightforward  gaze,  the  sweetness  !  It  is  not  possible 
to  give  in  words  the  beauty  of  this ;  Correggio  or  Gior- 
gione  need  not  have  been  ashamed  of  it,  and  there  is  a 
depth  of  human  expression  I  have  never  seen  in  them ; 
.she  was  her  grandfather's  darling,  and  she  must  be  of 
every  one  who  looks  at  her,  though  she  has  been  fifty 
years  in  her  grave. 


364  SIR   HENRY   RAEBURN. 

Thomson  of  Duddingston  —  heavy  and  strong. 

I  was  confirmed  by  the  grandchildren  as  to  the  sim 
pie,  frank,  hearty  nature   of    the  man,   his  friendliness 
and  cheery  spirit,  his  noble  presence  —  six  feet  two  — 
and  his  simple,  honest  pleasures  and  happy  life. 

I  am  indebted  to  Mrs.  Ferrier,  widow  of  Professor 
Ferrier  of  St.  Andrews,  and  eldest  daughter  of  Pro- 
fessor Wilson,  the  renowned  "  Christopher  North,"  for 
the  following  recollections  of  St.  Bernard's  House  and 
the  Raeburn  family.  She  was  then  about  six  years  of 
age.  Our  first  parents  "  skelpin'  aboot "  before  the  Fall, 
and  before  "  Shelly  "  in  his  old  white  hat,  is  a  great 
idea. 

"  More  than  half  a  century  ago  I  was  frequently  in 
my  childhood  at  St.  Bernard's  House,  on  the  banks  of 
the  Water  of  Leith,  which  were  in  those  days  green 
and  smooth  to  the  river's  edge.  This  old  house  was 
reached  by  a  broad  avenue  of  trees  and  shrubbery  from 
Ann  Street,  where  we  lived  for  some  years  ;  this  would  be 
about  1820.  This  interesting  old  house  was  surrounded 
by  large  green  fields,  a  fine  orchard  of  apple  and  pear- 
trees,  and  leading  from  this  was  another  avenue  of  old 
stately  elms,  part  of  which  still  remain  with  the  rookery 
in  St.  Bernard's  Crescent.  On  the  right  hand  of  this 
avenue  was  a  nice  old  garden,  well  stocked,  and  with 
hot-houses* 

"  In  this  ancient  mansion  lived  the  Raeburn  family, 
with  whom  we  were  very  intimate  as  children  and  like- 
wise school  companions,  though  there  were  some  years 
between  our  ages.  Sir  Henry  and  Lady  Raeburn,  and 
their  son  and  his  wife,  with  three  children,  comprised 
the  family  party  at  this  time.  The  great  portrait-painter, 


SIR  HENRY   RAEBURN.  365 

as  far  as  I  can  recollect  him,  had  a  very  impressive  ap- 
pearance, his  full,  dark,  lustrous  eyes,  with  ample  brow 
and  dark  hair,  at  this  time  somewhat  scant.  His  tall, 
large  frame  had  a  dignified  aspect.  I  can  well  remem- 
ber him,  seated  in  an  arm-chair  in  the  evening,  at  the 
fireside  of  the  small  drawing-room,  a  newspaper  in  his 
hand,  with  his  family  around  him.  His  usual  mode  of 
address  to  us  when  spending  the  evenings,  while  he  held 
out  his  hand  with  a  kind  smile,  was  "  Well,  my  dears, 
what  is  your  opinion  of  things  in  general  to-day?" 
These  words  always  filled  us  with  consternation,  and  we 
all  huddled  together  like  a  flock  of  scared  sheep,  vainly 
attempting  some  answer  by  gazing  from  one  to  the 
other ;  and  with  what  delight  and  sense  of  freedom  we 
were  led  away  to  be  seated  at  the  tea-table,  covered 
with  cookies,  bread  and  butter  and  jelly !  From  this 
place  of  security  we  stole  now  and  then  a  fearful  glance 
at  the  arm-chair  in  which  Sir  Henry  reclined.  After  tea 
we  were  permitted  to  go  away  for  play  to  another  room, 
where  we  made  as  much  noise  as  we  liked,  and  gener- 
ally managed  to  disturb  old  Lady  Raeburn,  not  far  from 
the  drawing-room,  where  we  had  all  been  at  tea  on  our 
best  behavior,  in  the  presence  of  her  great  husband. 
This  old  lady  was  quite  a  character,  and  always  spoke 
in  broad  Scotch,  then  common  among  the  old  families, 
now  extinct.  I  can  never  forget  the  manner  in  which 
we  uproarious  creatures  tormented  her,  flinging  open  the 
door  of  her  snus  little  room,  whither  she  had  fled  for  a 

O  ' 

little  quiet  from  our  incessant  provocations  and  unwea- 
ried inventions  at  amusement,  which  usually  reached  the 
climax  by  throwing  bed-pillows  at  her  and  nearly  smoth- 
ering her  small  figure.  At  this  juncture  she  would  rise 
ap,  and,  opening  the  door  of  a  cupboard,  would  bring  out 


3GCJ  SIR   HENRY   RAEBURN. 

of  it  a  magnificent  bunch  of  grapes,  which  she  endeav- 
ored to  divide  among  us  with  these  words  of  entreaty, 
"Hoot,  hoot,  bairns,  here's  some  grapes  for  ye;  noo 
gang  awa'  an'  behave  yersels  like  gude  bairns,  an'  diuna 
deave  me  ony  main"  For  a  short  time  the  remedy 
effected  a  lull  in  the  storm,  which,  at  the  least  hint,  was 
ready  to  set  in  with  renewed  vigor.  She  would  then 
throw  out  of  a  wardrobe  shawls,  turbans,  bonnets,  and 
gear  of  all  sorts  and  colors,  in  which  we  arrayed  our- 
selves to  hold  our  court,  Anne  Raeburn  being  very  often 
our  Queen.  Beyond  the  walls  of  the  house  we  used  to 
pass  hours  of  a  sunny  forenoon  in  drawing  a  yellow 
child's  coach,  which  held  two  of  us,  who  were  as  usual 
enveloped  in  shawls  and  decorated  with  feathers  and 
flowers  for  our  masquerading.  There  was  a  black  pony ; 
I  remember  well  its  being  led  up  and  down  the  long 
avenue  by  an  old  nurse  with  some  one  of  the  Raeburn 
children  on  it.  When  we  were  in  quieter  moods  at  play 
we  used  to  go  up  four  or  five  steps  at  the  end  of  the 
passage  leading  to  the  great  drawing-room,  which  was 
seldom  entered  except  on  company  days.  We  children 
never  quite  felt  at  our  ease  when  we  stealthily  opened 
the  door  of  this  large  apartment ;  we  imagined  there 
might  be  a  ghost  somewhere.  There  was  a  curious  old 
beggar-man,  I  must  not  forget  to  mention,  who  was  fed 
and  supported  by  the  family,  by  name  Barclay,  alias 
SHELLY,  so  called  not  from  the  poet,  but  from  his  shell- 
ing the  peas,  and  who  lived  in  some  outhouse.  This  old 
creature  was  half-witted,  and  used  to  sweep  the  withered 
leaves  from  the  lawn,  manage  the  pigs,  etc. ;  short  of 
stature,  of  a  most  miserable  aspect,  on  his  head  an  old 
gray  hat  crushed  over  his  face,  which  was  grizzly  with 
unshaven  beard.  He  wore  a  long-tailed  coat,  probably 


SIR   HENRY   RAEBURN.  367 

one  of  Sir  Henry's,  and  always  had  a  long  stick  in  his 
hand.  We  wished  to  be  very  familiar  with  him,  but 
were  never  at  our  ease,  owing  to  his  strange  appearance 
and  his  shuffling  gait.  He  exercised  a  great  fascination 
over  us,  and  we  used  to  ask  him  to  tell  us  stories,  al- 
though he  was  nearly  idiotic  —  "silly,"  to  use  a  common 
Scotch  phrase.  He  often  said,  as  he  turned  round  and 
pointed  to  the  banks  of  the  river,  "  Ou  eye,  bairns,  I  can 
weel  remember  Adam  and  Eve  skelpin'  aboot  naket 
amang  the  gowans  on  the  braes  there."  At  times  this 
dirty,  uncanny  old  man  got  hold  of  a  fiddle,  on  which 
he  scraped  with  more  energy  than  success. 

. "  After  Sir  Henry's  death  and  our  removal  from  Ann 
Street,  the  old  house  of  St.  Bernard's  passed  into  the 
silence  of  memory,  but  I  have  alllny  life  been  intimate 
with  the  family  " 

We  now  part  with  regret  from  this  fine  old  friend. 
We  have  been  nobly  entertained  ;  it  has  been  a  quite 
rare  pleasure  to  rest  our  mind  and  eyes  on  his  character 
and  works  —  to  feel  the  power  of  his  presence  —  his 
great  gifts  —  his  frank,  broad,  manly  nature.  We  have 
come  to  know  him  and  his  ways  and  be  grateful  to  him. 
We  see  him  in  his  spacious  room  in  York  Place,  hearty 
and  keen,  doing  his  best  to  make  his  sitters  look  them- 
selves and  their  best,  instead  of  looking  "  as  if  they 
could  n't  help  it."  He  had  a  knack  of  drawing  them 
•mt  on  what  their  mind  was  brightest,  and  making  them 
forget  and  be  themselves.  For  is  it  not  this  self-con- 
sciousness —  this  reflex  action,  this  tiresome  ego  of  ours, 
which  makes  us  human,  and  plays  the  mischief  with  so 
much  of  us,  to  which  man  owes  so  much  of  his  misery 
and  greatness  ?  What  havoc  it  makes  of  photographs, 


368  SIR   HENRY   RAEBURX. 

unless  they  be  of  dogs  or  children,  or  very  old  people, 
whose  faces  like  other  old  houses  are  necessarily  pictu- 
resque. Sir  Joshua  used  to  suffer,  as  all  portrait-pain- 
ters must  who  wish  to  get  at  the  essence  of  their  man, 
from  this  self-consciousness  in  his  sitters.  He  used  to 
tell  that  the  happiest  picture  he  ever  painted  was  done 
in  this  wise  :  some  Sir  John  had  been  importuned  by  his 
family  year  after  year  to  sit  to  him.  He  never  would. 
One  day  a  friend  came  and  said  he  was  going  to  sit  to 
Reynolds,  and  wished  Sir  John  to  come  and  keep  him 
company.  He  was  delighted,  went  day  after  day  with 
his  friend,  and  was  most  agreeable.  He  was  not  allowed 
to  see  the  picture  till  it  was  finished,  and  then  he  beheld 
—  himself !  a  perfect  likeness.  If  we  could  get  the  sun 
to  take  us  in  this  unbeknown  sort  of  way,  he  would 
make  a  better  thing  of  us  than  he  generally  does. 

In  looking  over  Raeburn's  portraits,  one  feels  what 
would  we  not  give  to  have  such  likenesses  of  Julius  Cae- 
sar and  Hannibal,  Plato  and  Alcibiades,  of  Lucian  and 
JEsop,  Moses  and  St.  Paul,  as  we  have  here  of  Dugald 
Stewart  and  Dr.  Adam,  Homer  and  Scott  ?  What  we 
want  is  the  eyes,  the  soul  looking  out.  There  are  genu- 
ine busts  of  the  great  ancients,  men  and  women ;  we 
know  the  snub  nose  of  Socrates,  the  compact  skull  of 
Hannibal,  and  we  have  a  whole  row  of  these  tremendous 
fellows  the  Roman  Emperors,  but  we  want  to  see  ilie 
eyes  of  Caesar  and  the  keen,  rich  twinkle  of  Aristophaves. 
What  would  a  Burns  be  without  the  eyes  ? 


SOMETHING  ABOUT  A   WELL. 


SOMETHING  ABOUT  A   WELL. 


|SjHEN  a  boy  I  knew,  and  often  still  think,  of  a 


well  far  up  among  the  wild  hills  —  alone,  with- 
out shelter  of  wall  or  tree,  open  to  the  sun  and 
all  the  winds.  There  it  lies,  ever  the  same,  self-con- 
tained, all-sufficient ;  needing  no  outward  help  from 
stream  or  shower,  but  fed  from  its  own  unseen,  unfailing 
spring. 

In  summer,  when  all  things  are  faint  with  the  fierce 
heat,  you  may  see  it,  lying  in  the  dim  waste,  a  daylight 
star,  in  the  blaze  of  the  sun,  keeping  fresh  its  circle  of 
young  grass  and  flowers. 

The  small  birds  know  it  well,  and  journey  from  fav 
and  near  to  dip  in  it  their  slender  bills  and  pipe  each 
his  glad  song. 

The  sheep-dog  may  be  seen  halting,  in  his  haste  to  the 
uplands,  to  cool  there  his  curling  tongue. 

In  winter,  of  all  waters  it  alone  lives;  the  keen  ice 
that  seals  up  and  silences  the  brooks  and  shallows  has 
no  power  here.  Still  it  cherishes  the  same  grass  and 
flowers  with  its  secret  heat,  keeping  them  in  perpetual 
beauty  by  its  soft,  warm  breath. 

Nothing  can  be  imagined  more  sweetly  sudden  and 
beautiful  than  our  well  seen  from  a  distance,  set  with 
its  crown  of  green,  in  the  bosom  of  the  universal  snow. 
One  might  fancy  that  the  Infant  Spring  lay  nestled 


372  SOMETHING   ABOUT   A   WELL. 

there  out  of  grim  "Winter's  way,  waiting  till  he  would 
be  passed  and  gone. 

Many  a  time,  as  a  boy,  have  I  stood  by  the  side  of 
this  lonely  well,  "  held  by  its  glittering  eye,"  and  gazing 
into  its  black  crystal  depths,  until  I  felt  something  like 
solemn  fear,  and  thought  it  might  be  as  deep  as  the  sea  ! 
It  was  said  nobody  knew  how  deep  it  was,  and  that  you 
might  put  your  fishing-rod  over  head,  and  not  find  the 
bottom. 

But  I  found  out  the  mystery.  One  supremely  scorch- 
ing summer  day,  when  the  sun  was  at  his  highest  noon, 
I  lay  poring  over  this  wonder,  when  behold,  by  the  clear 
strong  light,  I  saw  far  down,  on  a  gentle  swelling  like  a 
hill  of  pure  white  sand  (it  was  sand),  a  delicate  column, 
rising  and  falling,  shifting  in  graceful  measures,  as  if 
governed  by  a  music  of  its  own.  With  what  awful  glee 
did  I  find  myself  sole  witness  of  this  spectacle  !  If  I 
had  caught  a  Soul,  or  seen  it  winking  at  me  out  of  its 
window,  I  could  have  scarcely  been  more  amazed  and 
delighted. 

What  was  it?  May  be  the  Soul  of  the  Well?  May 
be  Truth  ?  found  at  last  where  we  have  been  so  often 
told  to  seek  for  it.  How  busy,  how  nimble,  \\ovf  funny  ! 
Now  twisting,  now  untwisting,  now  sinking  on  its  bed 
as  if  fainting  with  ecstasy,  then  starting  bolt  upright  and 
spinning  round  like  a  top  ;  again  it  would  curl  up  like 
a  smooth  pillow,  and  anon  pause  for  a  moment  as  if 
hovering  with  out-stretched  wings,  and  then  fold  itself 
once  more  on  its  bed. 

I  have  often  seen  it  since,  and  it  was  always  at  its 
work,  and  is  so  doubtless  still,  morn,  noon,  and  night, 
incessantly,  and  its  out-flow  all  the  year  round  was  the 
same. 

Such  is  our  well,  at  all  times  the  same,  full,  clear, 
deep,  composed ;  its  only  motion  a  gentle  equable 


SOMETHING  ABOUT   A  WELL.  373 

heaving,  its  only  sound  the  liquid  gurgle  of  its  over- 
flowings among  the  roots  of  the  flowers,  its  open  face 
reflecting  the  heavens,  calm  or  in  storm,  and  though 
disquieted  by  every  wandering  wind,  or  dipping  fly,  or 
scampering  "  well-washer,"  soon  recovering  its  placid 
face,  while  its  depths  rest  forever  untroubled. 

Pray  you  have  a  heart  like  this  well,  full,  deep,  clear, 
unchangeable,  with  Truth  at  the  bottom ;  and  a  merry 
dancing  elf  there  too,  dancing  to  himself,  "ever  wealthy 
with  the  treasure  of  his  own  exceeding  pleasure." 

In  the  time  of  hot  raging  passion,  a  fountain  of  cool- 
ness. In  shivering  grief  and  bleak  misery,  a  refuge 
from  the  storm,  a  covert  from  the  tempest,  and  at  all 
times  a  "  balm  that  tames  all  anguish,  that  steeps  in  rich 
reward  all  suffering,  a  saint  that  evil  thoughts  and  aims 
taketh  away."  Fearless  alike  of  fire  and  frost,  cool,  not 
cold,  warm,  not  hot.  How  many  such  hearts  are  at  this 
moment  beating  in  the  bosoms  of  our  mothers,  wives, 
sisters,  daughters,  as  little  known,  it  may  be,  as  this 
wilderness  well,  as  full  of  goodness  and  love  that  never 
fails,  passing  away  in  silence,  and  telling  no  tale  of  all 
the  good  they  do,  and  known  only  by  the  verdure  that 
conceals  their  course. 

Long  may  thy  springs, 
Quietly  as  a  sleeping  infant's  breath, 
Send  up  cool  waters  to  the  Traveller 
With  soft  and  easy  pulse  ;  nor  ever  cease 
Yon  tiny  cone  of  sand  its  soundless  dance 
Which  at  the  bottom,  like  a  fairy's  page, 
As  merry  and  no  taller,  dances  still. 

And  long  may  our  wells  of  living  water  find  duty  and 
affection,  and  making  the  wilderness  and  the  solitary 
place  to  rejoice,  their  exceeding  great  reward,  and  else- 
where spring  up  to  everlasting  life. 

12th  April,  1836.  J.  B. 

1874. 


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GAYLORD 


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